Stevie
by BlitheBells
Summary: ON HIATUS In this realistic fiction styled AU, Bucky Barnes is a former POW and the adoptive single father of baby Steve Rogers. Natalia Romanova is the Russian ballerina "girl next door", running from a life of loneliness. Can they balance their difficult lives with their budding romance? Rated PG-13 for violence. Also on AO3 and Wattpad
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

The crying begins early that night. Bucky rouses himself tiredly and rubs his eyes, groaning. He feels an ache of exhaustion deep down in his bones, but Stevie is still bawling in the next room and so Bucky drags himself to his feet. He shuffles into the dark hall, following the sounds of the baby screaming.

"Hey, hey," he says quietly as he enters the room and scoops Stevie up. "Hey, shh, its alright, Daddy's here." Bucky cuddles Stevie to his chest with one arm and kisses his tiny head. "I'm takin' care of you."

Like he does almost every night, Bucky takes Stevie back to his bed with him, still rocking him and kissing him and trying to talk in a soothing voice and after a while, Stevie's crying subsides and Bucky watches him tiredly fall back into sleep.

He lays back down onto the bed with Stevie sleeping on his chest, listening to his quiet little breaths, and stares up at the ceiling and sighs. The sleep he returns to is anxious and frustratingly light.

In the morning, Bucky wakes early with baby drool dripping down his neck and Stevie still fast asleep. Bucky wipes up his neck with the corner of his t-shirt and makes a face and then slowly slides Stevie off of him until he can stand up.

He leaves Stevie asleep on his mattress as he stumbles into the bathroom. His hair is still sweaty and slick from a sleep less than restful and he runs his hand through it and frowns. His skin is sallow and there are dark rings under his eyes from lack of sleep. He examines himself from the right, in order to avoid looking at what is left of his left arm, lost above the elbow. He looks like death.

Bucky scrubs his face and takes a fast shower, then pulls his wet hair back into a ponytail and returns to Stevie. He dresses and picks him up, resting him against his shoulder again.

"Come on, Stevie, gotta wake up," Bucky says. "I gotta get to work, and your babysitter will be here soon." Stevie yawns and wriggles and Bucky keeps a steady hand on his back, cradling his butt and legs in the crook of his arm, and starts to rub his back. He takes him to the kitchen and, as Stevie's still waking, sits him in his highchair at the table. Bucky keeps talking to Stevie, just to fill the silence, not saying anything important, and Stevie makes faces in response, stretching and waving his tiny hands above his head as he sits. Bucky starts to throw together breakfast, heating up oatmeal for them both on the stove, and he brings Stevie a bottle of milk, warmed in the microwave.

When Mrs Carter arrives, he lets her in and hands her Stevie's bowl of oatmeal.

"The nebulizer's still in the closet if he has an asthma attack," Bucky tells her. "And there's more oatmeal on the stove for him if he's still hungry. If he gets bored, just put him in his crib with some stuffed animals or put on a TV show; he likes that. Dinner's in the fridge. I'll be back at five-thirty. Call me if anything goes wrong."

"Stevie'll be fine, Mr Barnes," Mrs Carter reassures him and Bucky grabs his bag of supplies and is out the door.

He catches a bus out of the suburbs and deeper into New York, where he gets out and walks to an office building. He hates this office building.

Bucky sits in his cubicle and fidgets with his computer, trying to get as little work done as possible. He stares into space as the office around him buzzes and-

-he's chained to a floor somewhere dark and the ground under him is cold and damp. he's tasting blood in his mouth, stale and copper, and he hasn't eaten in days. he feels fear. he's so afraid. he doesn't know where he is or who he is or what's happening.

he hears feet against the floor getting closer and he hears someone else breathing and he starts to weep.

Bucky finds himself again in his cubicle. He's gripping the corner of his desk so tightly his knuckles are white and he feels sweat beading on his forehead and he's breathing hard. His heart is racing and tears itch at the corners of his eyes.

"Not real, not real, not real," he says to himself over and over again in a hushed voice, so no one else around him can know something unusual is happening in the cubicle next to them and Bucky pries his fingers up from the desk. "Not real, not real, not real." He swipes shakily at his sweaty forehead and brushes his hair back from his face.

It feels real. He can still feel the shackles on his hands and feet and his bare skin against the ground. He can still feel the frantic, horrified fear, the dread in his stomach, the emptiness inside his head that gives him no name, no home, no nothing.

But it's not real, and Bucky continues to tell himself that, resting his head against the desk and bringing his arm up over his head. He squeezes his eyes shut and tells his heart to slow.

Bucky hates flashbacks, but at least no one notices him this time.

Bucky toughs it out to the end of the day, only a few hours left, and talks to no one. He eats lunch alone and focuses most of his energy on steadying his trembling hand.

Fury comes by his cubicle every so often, peering over his shoulder to make sure he's working, and Bucky manages to disguise his panicking for the few seconds he's there.

Then, at the very second the hand on the clock reaches the five, Bucky leaps from his desk and grabs his bag and races for the door.

Once he's returned home, he's calmed himself. He pays Mrs Carter for the day and greets Stevie with kisses.

"How about a walk?" He asks and Stevie cooes quietly and reaches up to play with the tips of his hair and Bucky loads him up in his stroller and takes him out to the park.

_PSA: Today is April 4th and I go off the grid (read: on an LDS mission to California) on April 29th. So with that in mind, I'm going to be posting all my fanfiction with reckless abandon! I'm going to finish Unseen and Water and I'm going to cram in Stevie here and then I'm out of the fanfiction scene for 18 months. :( I just want to give everyone a heads up about what's going on and I'll continue to keep everyone posted with details the closer and closer it gets to the 29th._

_But until then, enjoy another story from me! It'll be completed before the end of the month. :) -BlitheBells_


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Bucky's exhausted and he hates reliving the things he did while at work, but Stevie ought to get out and get some fresh air sometimes and Bucky had promised him a walk every so often. So they're out, even that day, and Bucky takes them into the park. It's a big park at the center of the town, surrounded by shops and restaurants, and Bucky holds onto Stevie's stroller and pushes him around, trying to point out things like butterflies and clouds and flowers, but he's losing his focus. His thoughts keep drifting back to that day at the office and he tries not to think about it too hard because thinking too hard usually leaves him a shaky, blubbering mess, but it's hard to keep his thoughts on anything else. He's beginning to feel again the sickness of fear in his stomach when he's distracted by familiar sounds and stops.

"How do you not understand what I'm trying to say!" A woman's voice exclaims in accentless Russian and Bucky sucks in a breath, assaulted with memory. Then, in _very_ accented English, she continues. "That! I want that!"

"Look, lady, unless you got a translator around here, I can't help you," a man says. American. English. Bucky watches from a yard or two away, recognizing a tall red-headed woman as the Russian speaker and a vendor on the street she is arguing with as the English speaker, and he quietly backs himself and Stevie up to hear clearer.

"I am speaking English," the woman says and she sounds angry.

"Is something the matter?" Bucky finally speaks up, pulling the stroller closer to the vendor. The woman looks at him and she looks stunned to hear him speak Russian. "I can help." The woman's face breaks into one of relief and she smiles at him hugely. It's Bucky's turn now to feel stunned and he thinks her smile is like the light of a thousand floodlights shown in his face. She's absolutely beautiful. He's never seen someone so gorgeous.

"This man can't understand me," she says, gesturing to the vendor and tucking a piece of curly red hair behind her ear. "I guess my English is just too bad."

"It's fine," Bucky says. "I'll tell him. What did you want?" She sighs exasperatedly.

"Just a hotdog," she says. "Just a plain, regular New York hotdog." Bucky grins at her and hopes against hope he sounds charming.

"No such thing as a plain New York hotdog, ma'am," he says, making her smile again, and then turns to the vendor and works between them as a translator.

"I'm Natalia," the woman says finally, once she'd paid for her meal and stepped aside. "Natalia Romanova. Thank you for helping me."

"It's no problem," Bucky reassures her. "I'm, um, James Barnes. But everyone calls me Bucky. And this here," he gestures into the stroller. "Is Stevie Rogers."

"Aww!" Natalia cooes and she kneels down to put her face into the stroller. Bucky expects this. It seems everyone likes to talk to babies, and he gets stopped often. "Hi, Stevie!" She says and Stevie giggles.

"Hey!" Bucky exclaims, surprised. "You made him laugh. That's not very common, you know. He must like you." Natalia straightens up and smiles and Bucky wants to beam looking at her.

"He's a beautiful baby," Natalia compliments him and Bucky leans over Stevie's stroller himself now, balancing the handle on his stomach and reaching in to tickle Stevie.

"Thanks," he said and he feels Stevie's fingers close around his, but pulls them away before they can reach his mouth. "He's really something."

"Is there a Mrs Barnes around?" Natalia asks, raising an eyebrow, and Bucky awkwardly shakes his head, unsure what she must think of him.

"I'm not married," he admits, and then tries to explain. "But, um, Stevie _is _my baby. He's adopted."

"Oh, I see," Natalia says and then continues with that stunning smile that Bucky almost lets himself interpret as flirtatious. "So, tell me, Mr Barnes. Where did an American man learn to speak Russian so beautifully?" Bucky's smile falters.

"Uh," he says, straightening back up, and suddenly he can't think of a convincing lie. He wants to scramble for the truth and swallow it down again as soon as it comes out of his mouth and he says, "as a prisoner of war." Natalia freezes, like she's waiting for him to yell 'sic!' and when he doesn't, her face goes white. She misses a beat.

"Oh," she finally says and Bucky tries to smile again, to lighten the mood. He wishes he knew what to say.

"It's fine," he finally says. "You didn't know." Natalia, starting to turn red, swallows a bite of her hotdog. Bucky wants to keep the conversation going because he's starting to like Natalia and her beautiful smile and because he can't stand the way she's refusing to look at him now, awkwardly training her eyes on the ground like he'd just grown a second head. He wishes he'd lied about how he'd learned Russian. He changes the subject hastily. "So, what are you doing in New York? Vacationing?"

"Oh, no," Natalia says. "I've got an apartment a few blocks from here. I moved in a week or so ago and I'm trying to get to know the city."

"Russia was just too cold?" Bucky asks teasingly and Natalia laughs and shakes her head.

"No, I'm here for work," she says. "I'm a dancer and I'm doing a run of a show for a few months here in New York."

"Oh, wow. That's really cool," Bucky says and he means it. But his heart sinks a little to hear that she'll only be here a few months. "What show is it?"

Natalia tells him the name of a few Russian ballets and smiles while she says them and Bucky decides right then and there that maybe he ought to start looking into dancing as a hobby. He asks her when she performs and she gives him a few dates a couple months in the future.

"We're doing some rehearsal now," she tells him. "And it opens in October."

"I'll have to go," he replies and smiles. "I bet it'll be great." She laughs and her eyes twinkle. He thinks he's never seen someone's eyes glitter like that before and he wonders what exactly has gotten into him that he's admiring every single aspect of her like she was made of gold, like she'd descended from heaven. He reminds himself for the millionth time not to come off as weird.

"I hope so!" She says. Then, "I'd love to see you there."

Bucky misses a beat because he's so distracted with her, and once he regains himself again, he starts to try to shuffle his phone out of his pocket.

Easy, Barnes, he tells himself. Play it cool.

"Here," he says. "Let me give you my number and if you ever need someone to show you around the city, I'll be there." Natalia looks up at him and he congratulates himself on what sounded like a job well done.

"You and Stevie?" She asks and he's suddenly and breathlessly one hundred percent aware of how undesirable he must look. A single dad, an amputee no less, with a baby. She must think he's strange after the slip about his being a POW and on top of it all, he hasn't even cut his hair in months. Bucky feels the blood rushing to his face.

"I could get a babysitter," he says weakly, and then reprimands himself for saying it. Stupid! Stupid, Barnes, what were you thinking?! Luckily, Natalia laughs and smiles at him and he loses himself again in that smile and she says, "No, bring him." She shifts her smile down to Stevie and makes kissy faces at him and Bucky hears him laugh again. "I like him." When she looks back up to him again, he's shocked to find she's handing him her smartphone. "Let's exchange numbers."

Bucky hands her his phone and takes hers, feeling a smile creep onto his face as he types the numbers in. They switch phones again and Bucky slips his into his pocket, feeling suddenly elated.

"I'll see you soon then, Bucky?" Natalia asks, using his first name for the first time, and he only nods before she waves goodbye and blows Stevie a kiss and Bucky watches her walk away.

"See you soon," he says too late, and then when she's gone, he takes his phone out of his pocket to examine the new contact. Next to a picture he hadn't noticed she'd taken of herself, she'd written: Natalia R 3 (call me)


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

The next day, Bucky is staring at the ceiling, wide awake, when his alarm rings. He rubs his eyes tiredly and forces himself up. His entire body aches with the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that accompanies bad sleep. Stevie had slept through the night for once, and it would have been a blessing if Bucky had followed suit, but he had difficulty closing his eyes. He'd slept maybe three hours total the entire night.

And the morning routine begins again, with Bucky squeezing in a fast shower while Stevie's still quiet in his crib and avoiding his own reflection in the mirror as he pulls his work polo on over his head and slicks his wet hair back with his hand. He enters Stevie's room, woefully bare except for a soft rocking chair Bucky let himself splurge on and and dresser across from the crib, and leans into Stevie's crib to scoop him up. Stevie's strangely still as Bucky holds him to his chest, unnervingly so, and Bucky feels his own heart stop.

"Stevie?" He says and starts bouncing Stevie gently. "Steve?" No response. Bucky feels all at once as though he'd either scream or throw up and he frantically starts rubbing Stevie's back as best as he can. "Come on kid, open your eyes, come on." Nothing. Bucky runs Stevie into his bedroom and lays him down on the mattress and puts his ear to his little mouth. He hears a rattling and feels the softest exhale. "Stevie, come on, breathe for me now kid, come on!" Bucky cries, his voice escalating. He stands up straight and races out of the room at top speed, running into the hall and throwing open the closet door to find Stevie's nebulizer and medication, tears already beginning to spill down his cheeks. He runs the little machine back into the room and straps Stevie's face into the gas mask. It's medicine, a sort of inhaler, and Bucky prays it works, prays it brings his baby back. It has before.

Bucky doesn't hesitate any longer. Now that Stevie's strapped into the nebulizer, he slides the handle of the machine over his forearm and then scoops Stevie up, somewhat precariously, and goes as fast as he can out of the house. Bucky owns a tiny, ridiculously old car that's usually more trouble than it's worth, but now, Bucky couldn't be more grateful. He loads the baby into his carseat and races to the drivers seat and speeds Stevie to the hospital.

The rest is a blur. Everything moves fast and Bucky follows behind the doctors as long as he can until they take Stevie and stop him and he balls his hand into a fist and grinds his teeth together, but he's crying so hard that it's difficult to see and all he can hear as he's left in the dust behind closed doors is the echo of doctor's voices and the beeping of machines and he eventually finds himself collapsing into a chair in the waiting room and leaning over his knees and sobbing.

It's not that he hasn't been in this position before with Stevie. It's just that every time it happens, Bucky is devastated all over again and every time he's left in the waiting room, he's reminded that that might be the last time he sees his baby.

An hour or so later, Bucky has pulled himself together. He's holding his cellphone to his face and trying to blow hair out of his eyes at the same time and pacing.

"I'm sorry, I meant to call," he says. "I had to take my son to the hospital again; it was an emergency."

Fury on the other end responds and Bucky takes the phone away from his face for one second so he can rub his eyes. "What?" He says.

"Will he be alright?" Fury asks, showing uncharacteristic concern. Or maybe it's not concern, maybe it's just polite to ask. Bucky doesn't think he knows anymore.

He also realizes he doesn't know the answer to Fury's question and that makes him want to cry more, but instead, he tells a lie he hopes is the truth.

"Yeah, he'll be alright now. I mean, I think," he says quietly. There's a distinct lack of hope in his voice. Fury takes a second to respond.

"Take care of your kid, Barnes," he instructs. "We'll see you tomorrow and I expect a few late hours."

"Thank you," Bucky responds and Fury hangs up. What he doesn't say to Bucky is how unreliable Bucky is. How little Bucky gets done when he's actually there. Bucky suspects he only still has this job because the people at the office pity him.

Bucky snaps his phone closed and crams it into his pocket and uses his now free hand to try to rub out the stress headache from between his eyes.

"Mr Barnes?" He hears and he looks up to see Nurse Carter. "Steve is stable now. You can sit in with him." Bucky feels tears stinging at his eyes.

"Fine," he says. "He's fine."

"He'll live," Nurse Carter says. "He suffered a very, very bad asthma attack." Bucky nods and then moves to follow her through the doors and back into Stevie's room.

"You know how it is, Sharon," he mumbles to her because they've been through this before and she nods. They reach Stevie's room and Bucky's anxious to see him, but Nurse Carter stops him before she opens the door. She looks up at him and presses her mouth together. He sees sympathy in her eyes. He knows that look well. He gets it a lot after people notice his left arm.

Nurse Carter looks like she'll say something, but she stops. He knows what she's thinking. What will he do? What will Bucky Barnes do when he brings his son in yet again, only for them all to find out that that trip was the last one? What will he do.

"My aunt sure loves your boy," Nurse Carter finally says. She's referring to Mrs Carter, the babysitter, and Bucky just nods.

"He's hard not to love," he replies and his voice isn't as strong as he'd wanted it to be. Nurse Carter just lets out a breath and nods and then opens the door and lets Bucky in.

Stevie is tiny, too tiny to be one year and a few weeks old, but he is, and in his tiny hospital crib, he's hooked to miniature machines and tubes and Bucky collapses into a chair close to him and sticks his hand between the bars and wraps his fingers around Stevie's little balled fist.

Nurse Carter leaves Bucky alone to hold his son's hand and cry.

Doctors and nurses come and go, poking and prodding at Stevie, telling Bucky to move, administering new medicines, and at least Bucky can see Stevie's chest rise and fall again. He watches with red eyes.

His phone rings later in the day and Bucky pulls it out of his pocket, confused. No one calls him except for work and maybe the occasional telemarketer, and he's a little stunned to see the words 'Natalia R 3 (call me)' on his screen.

He's not sure what to do while his phone buzzes in his hand. Any other day and he'd answer the phone with vigor, but he's in a hospital room with Stevie and there's a doctor in the corner and Bucky's voice is still warbly and raspy from the tears and he's not sure he can muster up the energy to pretend he's okay.

The phone buzzes again and Bucky answers.

"Hello?" He says in Russian. One of the doctors looks at him curiously over his shoulder and Bucky turns away.

"I hope you'll excuse me for calling you so early," Natalia said. He can hear that smile in her voice, but it doesn't cheer him up. "I know I'm supposed to wait a few days, play hard to get." Is she flirting with him?

"Uh," Bucky says.

"But I thought that my New York tour guide and his adorable baby would like to show me a restaurant around here sometime tonight," Natalia continues, glossing over his blunder. Bucky swallows and he waits too long before responding. "This isn't a good time," Natalia said quietly in response to his silence.

"No, um," Bucky says, and then stops himself. "Yes. It's a really bad time."

"Bucky?" Natalia says. "Your… Are you alright? What's wrong?" Bucky glances down at Stevie with all those little tubes in him and looks away again quickly, threatened by a closing throat and watering eyes.

"I'm in the hospital right now," he admits. "Stevie… We had a bad morning." Natalia seems speechless on the other line.

"Something's wrong with Stevie?" She asks and he nods before remembering himself and saying, "Yes."

"Is there anything I can do?" Natalia asks breathlessly.

"Thank you, Natalia, but no," Bucky says. "He'll be okay, he'll live."

"What happened?" Natalia asks and Bucky's not sure he can say. It suddenly seems so complicated.

"Stevie has a lot of health problems," he finally says. "He had a bad asthma attack this morning and stopped breathing."

"Oh," Natalia says and she sounds like she did when Bucky had told her about his time spent in Russia. Shell-shocked. He can't blame her. "I'm so sorry," she says.

"Thanks," Bucky says.

"Are you sure you don't need any help?" Natalia continues. "You must be devastated. Surely there's something I can do to relieve the stress a little." Bucky almost scoffs, although her request is innocent. There's nothing she can do and she doesn't understand. There's nothing anyone can do.

He would make some sort of dark joke about that, but he's not sure he's ready to dump that on Natalia. After all, most people's lives aren't the trainwreck of tragedies that Bucky's is and most people don't have the weight of them all looming behind like some sort of demented shadow. Bucky would like to pretend with Natalia that he didn't either, at least for a while. He didn't want to scare her away.

"How about I show you somewhere to eat later in the week?" He offers weakly.

"Alright," Natalia replies quietly. Then, "I'm so sorry about your baby, really, Bucky." And she sounds genuine. Bucky swallows.

"I am, too," he replies before they both hang up and he puts his phone back into his pocket.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Stevie's home by the evening, but he's tired and Bucky sits on the rocking chair with him and cradles him, humming songs and rocking gently back and forth. Stevie's eyes are half-closed and glazed over and he doesn't even reach for the tips of Bucky's hair as it dangles in front of him. Bucky sprinkles a few kisses over his face and Stevie yawns and smacks his lips.

"You're sleeping with me tonight," Bucky tells him, standing up from the rocking chair as Stevie closes his eyes again. "I want to keep an eye on you, little guy."

Bucky sleeps a little better that night with Stevie cuddling up to his chest and Bucky can feel every little breath on his skin.

In the morning, as Bucky's coaxing Stevie to eat more (come on, baby, it's good for you, eat a little more, you're too skinny), he receives a rather unfortunate phone call. It's Mrs Carter, and Bucky holds to phone to his ear with his shoulder and pokes at Stevie's stubbornly shut mouth with a full spoon of banana oatmeal.

Bucky's exhausted. If Mrs Carter cancels, he's not sure what he'll do.

And cancel she does. She's come down with a bad case of the cold, she tells him, and she'd come babysit anyway except that Stevie has such a weak immune system that a cold might be the end of him, and Bucky know's she's right. So he thanks her anyway and hangs up, all the while watching Stevie bang his fists on the counter and shout, "No no no no no!" And he thinks, _you and me both, Stevie._

"I can't cancel with work again today," Bucky says to Stevie. His stomach is twisting into knots. He'll have to leave soon and he can't leave Stevie alone. "Fury told me I'd have to work late anyway and I could lose this job if I don't go. We can't put you in a daycare; the other kids would sneeze on you and you'd keel over."

Stevie responds with gibberish.

"But I have no one else to call," Bucky said, and then it dawns on him that this is not entirely true. He remembers Natalia, thinks of how she'd really seemed genuinely concerned on the phone, and immediately starts telling himself no. Natalia? Some Russian woman he'd met on the street the other day? He didn't even know her. She could be a murderer, a wanted criminal. She could be notoriously bad with children. She could see this window into his life and realize what a hot mess he was and that she really wanted nothing to do with him anyway and Bucky's stomach turned again. It isn't exactly suave to ask a girl to babysit before you even buy her dinner and the idea that Natalia Romanova would turn her back on him seems a more plausible theory than the one about her being a wanted murderer.

But really, he has no other option.

Bucky calls Natalia.

"Hey, Bucky," Natalia answers. "How's Stevie doing?"

"He's better now," Bucky replied. "We're at home. Say 'hi', Stevie." He puts the phone up to Stevie's face and Stevie makes some cooing sounds into the phone. When Bucky brings it back to his own ear, Natalia's still cooing back, making babytalk and aww-ing. "He's a tough little guy," Bucky says.

"So, what do you need?" Natalia asks and Bucky realizes she's asking why he's calling her and holding the phone up to his baby at eight in the morning and he feels anxiety grip his heart.

"I have a pretty huge favor to ask," he says and cringes while he says it. "But if this is weird, cause I know it is, just tell me to get lost and I will. I'm just asking you because I'm beyond desperate." He takes a deep breath to stop himself from rambling. "I don't even know, you're probably not even free today, but… I have literally no where else to turn." Natalia's voice is questioning when she answers.

"Okay…?" she says. "What is it?"

"I work at an office in the city," he explains. "Nine to five deal. And my babysitter just quit on me."

"You're asking me to watch Stevie?" Natalia asks. "For nine hours?" Bucky swallows and finally gives up.

"It's too much. Look, just… Never mind," he says. "Forget I said anything, I'll just call in sick at work. Sorry for bothering you." He's about to hang up, cursing himself, when Natalia stops him.

"No, wait," she says. "I was just clarifying. That's what you want me to do?"

"It's a lot to ask," Bucky says. "But, if you can, I'd be endlessly grateful to you. I'd owe you the world."

"Alright, give me your address, Barnes," Natalia says and for a minute, Bucky can't believe he heard her right. He runs the Russian words over again in his mind and translates them into English and then back again and realizes that she's actually accepting his bizarre request.

"Really?" He says. "You'll do it?"

"I'll do it," Natalia says. "Because I like babies and I like you. But you owe me big time, Barnes."

"Of course!" Bucky exclaims. "Of course, I owe you! So much!"

Bucky gives Natalia his address and she says it'll take her ten minutes to get to his place and when they hang up, Bucky feels tension let go in his chest. He's never felt so relieved.

When Bucky turns back to Stevie, he finds that Stevie has upended the oatmeal bowl and is currently smearing it into his hair.

Natalia arrives precisely when she says she will, her hair messy around her face in stark contrast to the tight, wide curls he'd seen her in at the park. His guess was that she hadn't had much time to prepare, but her smile is still the most dazzling thing he's ever seen when he opens the door and ushers her in.

"Stevie's in the kitchen," he says. "He's having fun with his breakfast."

"Oh, dear," Natalia says as she walks in and sees him and she laughs. Bucky runs his hand through his hair and smiles a little. But he doesn't hesitate to appreciate her for long because he's still going to miss his bus and he has to warn Natalia about the what-ifs.

He gets the nebulizer out of the closet again to show her and explains that this is Stevie's asthma medication.

"It straps on his face," Bucky says. "With this little tiny mask. And you turn it on with this button and just leave it on him for maybe ten minutes and he should be okay." Natalia clutches her purse a little tighter looking at it and her eyes widen.

"You put that thing on such a tiny baby?" She asks and Bucky nods solemnly.

"He needs it sometimes," he says. "If you hear him rasping or wheezing or gasping at all, just get this immediately, okay?"

"Okay," Natalia says weakly.

"But, I don't want to scare you," Bucky says and he pushes the nebulizer onto the counter. "He's usually fine, you probably won't have to use it at all."

"Okay," Natalia says again.

Bucky begins to gather up his things for work.

"There's food in the fridge and the cupboards and I have labeled what Stevie eats for each meal," he says. "You can have whatever you want, just help yourself. If something happens, call me. My number's on that paper on the fridge."

"Is there anything else I should know about him?" Natalia asks and Bucky looks over at Stevie, who's drawing with his fingers in the oatmeal mess, and rakes his hair back into a messy ponytail.

"Be gentle with him?" Bucky says. "And I mean it, really gentle. He's fragile. Don't let him overexert himself. If he gets bored, he likes to play with stuffed animals and he really likes to be cuddled. He takes a nap at one. The diaper bag is by the crib. I get home at five-thirty." Natalia nods, taking everything in with wide eyes. Bucky's pulling his shoes on now and grabbing his keys off the counter.

"You can trust Stevie with me," she says to him and he looks at her and really hopes he can.

"I can't thank you enough for this," he admits. "Really." Natalia smiles a little and shrugs.

"It's no problem," she says and Bucky stops for a minute before he leaves just to look at her. He's grateful, and she seems so nice. He believes he's truly reading sincerity in her features when she talks to him and he hopes he's not imagining it.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Bucky calls behind his boss' back to check on Natalia and Stevie several times throughout the workday. She always answers the phone chipper and lets Stevie have a minute to babble into the mouthpiece and Bucky can't help but smile mindlessly when he hears them both.

"Everything's running smoothly?" He asks for the third time.

"Everything's just fine, Bucky," Natalia replies like she has the first two times and Bucky lets out a breath.

"Tell him I love him," he says and he hears Natalia pull the phone away from her face and say to Stevie in baby talk, "Your daddy loves you very, very much, Stevie."

"He says he loves you too," Natalia says when she brings the phone back to her face and Bucky smiles.

"Does he?" He teases. "And you can tell because…"

"I can see it in his eyes, Bucky," Natalia says over-seriously. "When this baby can talk, he'll have a lot to say."

"What are you, the baby whisperer?" Bucky says and Natalia laughs.

"Sure," she says. "That's me."

By the fourth call, Bucky realizes he never even discussed payment with Natalia. Bucky also realizes that he's stopped calling to ask about Stevie. At this point, he's calling to hear Natalia's voice.

"I can't afford much," Bucky tells her when she answers. "I can probably get you six or seven bucks an hour. I know that's not very good, and you deserve more."

"You're right, I do," Natalia says and Bucky's throat closes up for a minute. Then, she goes on. "How about this, Barnes, instead of paying me in beans, you pay me in dinner?"

"What?" Bucky says.

"You, me, and the baby. Dinner on you, what do you say?" Natalia says and Bucky's still struggling to scrape his jaw off the ground.

"I say that sounds great," he finally manages to choke out and when they hang up again, he's feeling a fluttering in his stomach and a blush creeping up to his face.

At five, Bucky begins to gather up his things, but Fury stops him with an arms-folded, pursed-lip glare.

"What?" Bucky says.

"You're gonna be here 'til seven, remember Barnes?" Fury says and Bucky remembers suddenly. His mouth goes dry. Natalia's already sat with Stevie for hours, she'll be expecting him to relieve her. He'd forgotten to ask her to stay late.

"Of course," Bucky gasps. "Um, I have to call my babysitter. And tell her."

"You've been talking to your babysitter all afternoon," Fury says and he sounds less than pleased. Bucky almost gulps. He needs this job.

"She's new," he says. "My regular babysitter got ill, couldn't make it. I just had to make sure everything was okay. With Stevie and all." Fury makes a face, but he relents and accepts Bucky's excuse.

"Just be here 'til seven," he instructs before he returns to his office and Bucky picks up his phone again.

"I have another favor," he says weakly into the phone when Natalia answers and the line is quiet on her end.

"Yes?" She finally says.

"What do you say to two more hours?" He asks and Natalia hesitates again.

"I can stay," she says. He wonders if she's angry. She would have every right to be.

"This is unreasonable, I know," he says. "I'm mad at myself, too."

"It's fine," Natalia says. "I wouldn't have minded some sort of heads up, but… I'm not just going to leave Stevie here."

"I don't know what I'd do if you hadn't been here for me today," Bucky says, and then adds, "I might be out of a job without you. I just want you to know how much I really do appreciate this. I know it's a sacrifice."

"Just be back soon, alright Bucky?" Natalia says and Bucky agrees eagerly, sprinkling his words with desperate apologies until she hangs up.

He works the extra two hours and then he's out as soon as he can be, racing back home.

He bursts in the door at seven-thirty and finds Natalia and Stevie on the couch in the living room. Instead of lined up at the door with her bag in hand, like Bucky had expected her to be, Natalia is cuddling Stevie to her chest on the couch. A blanket from the closet is pulled over them both and they have their eyes closed, napping. Bucky stares for a second, and then leans against the wall exhaustedly, not sure if he believes what he's seeing.

He battles with himself about waking her, not sure what she'd rather more, sleep or being paid and set free, and decides to give her a few more minutes of sleep while he changes out of his work clothes in his bedroom. When he returns, he approaches her cautiously, not wanting to scare her. He puts his hand gently on her shoulder and shakes a little and she wakes with a start, jumping and crying out.

"I'm sorry!" Bucky says in a lowered voice because Stevie, with his head in the crook of her neck, was still sound asleep. "I don't want to alarm you."

Natalia yawns and stretches, one hand on Stevie's back and the other above her head and then she starts to sit up a little blearily.

"I'm sorry I took so long," Bucky says and he takes the sleeping Stevie when Natalia offers him.

"No bother," Natalia says and yawns again. "Stevie and I were having a blast. We were partying."

"Glad to hear it," Bucky says and starts to rub Stevie's back. One of Stevie's arms wraps around his neck sleepily. "You really tuckered him out."

Natalia pulls the blanket off herself and starts to stand, still stretching.

"Tuckered myself out, too," she admits. "I could have slept there for days."

"You still want dinner?" He asks and she looks up at him. "As payment. Remember?"

"Oh!" Natalia says and yawns for the third time before saying, "Yes. I do."

Bucky sits down next to her.

"You want it tomorrow night?" He asks and she smiles at him, starting to comb unruly red hair out of her face with her fingers.

"Sounds perfect," she says.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Bucky has nightmares that night. He doesn't remember what they were exactly, but he knows that he wakes up screaming and by the time he stops, he can hear Stevie doing the same one room over.

Bucky is shaking so violently he can't scoop him up safely and so he collapses into the rocking chair in the corner of the room while Stevie howls and he covers his face with his hand. His whole body is wracked with trembling and there's a layer of sweat over his skin. He presses his back into the chair and tries to tell himself to breathe.

They sit there together for a good ten minutes while Stevie screams in his crib and Bucky tries to bring himself down from the panic.

Once his shaking has stopped at least enough for him to pick Stevie up, Bucky does and takes him back to the chair. He curls up there on the chair and cuddles the baby to his chest, bouncing him gently and rocking him back and forth.

"There, there," he says, but his voice isn't very convincing. "I'm sorry I woke you, kid, but it's all alright now." Stevie can tell when Bucky isn't calm and he isn't consoled by Bucky's shaking, hoarse voice and clammy skin.

So instead of trying to sleep again, Bucky takes Stevie into the living room and turns on the TV. There's nothing really interesting on because it's about three or four AM, but Bucky likes to have it on for the noise. Stevie starts to quiet, listening to the voices and music from the TV and Bucky sits with him on the couch, snuggling him the same way he'd seen Natalia do earlier, pressing the baby to his chest. When they're laying together tightly, Bucky grabs the blanket from the top of the couch and pulls it over them.

"We'll just stay here," Bucky says quietly to Stevie. "We'll just stay here until we're both better."

Stevie's distracted by the TV and he starts to mimic the sounds and Bucky stares ahead exhaustedly at the glow. He presses a kiss to the top of Stevie's head.

The rest of the night is a long one, but Stevie eventually falls back asleep. Bucky is afraid to close his eyes.

Once the morning comes, Bucky can see the sun rising in the window across the room. He pulls himself up and checks on Stevie's breathing and leaves him on the couch with the blanket. In the kitchen, he pulls out a chair and sits down with a bowl of cereal and finds his cell phone on the counter. It's not too unreasonably early, he thinks, and he starts to write a text.

"There's a really good pizza place on Main," he says. "Stevie and I could pick you up at six."

The response is almost immediate, and it comes with multiple emotes.

"Can't wait," Natalia writes. "Better be good for all that babysitting I did! :) ;))) 3"

Bucky wonders if she's just the kind of person to put hearts on her messages to everyone, or if it's supposed to mean something.

"You'll love it," he replies, and then adds a quick '3' before he has time to stop himself. He's not sure if that's a mistake or not and honestly, he's not entirely sure what he means by it, either.

Mrs Carter shows up this morning, albeit with a paper face mask over her mouth, and she shows Bucky that she's rubbing her hands periodically with germ killer. He warily approves, kisses Stevie, and leaves in a hurry.

He almost falls asleep on the bus today, but manages to stop himself. He's not sure how he won't fall asleep at work.

Work is mindless, all filing and punching numbers. He's a sort of secretary, and he keeps the office's numbers and papers straight, a job anyone could do really, which is part of the reason he's so afraid he'll be sacked one day. In fact, someone else might even be able to do it better because they'd most likely have two hands and ten fingers and a significantly easier time with keyboards. They'd come in every day consistently, which Bucky can't do because of Stevie, and they'd get more work done than him. But Bucky hasn't been sacked yet and he has relatively no other skills to speak of, at least none he can exploit, and so doing Fury's filing is all he has going for him.

It seems to him that everyone else at this office knows this. He's a charity case; the useless, armless army vet and his sick baby, and he hates it.

Bucky works as hard as he can today. He's still trying to make up for the loss of the other day when Stevie was in the hospital, and he'd like something to keep his mind on other than the nightmares, which come back to him in shudder-inducing snippets, and the way his eyelids keep sinking. He rarely has a night of good sleep and it's difficult to keep up with.

He leaves at five, along with the rest of his officemates who steer clear of him except to give him pitying glances or keep their eyes trained on the ground when he passes. He's caught a few staring at the stump of his left arm in the past and glared until they turned away, but this phenomenon is not entirely isolated to the office. He gets these responses everywhere.

Bucky relieves Mrs Carter at five thirty like every day and she tells him Stevie's been a good boy and that she was very careful to keep a good distance from him so he wouldn't get sick. Just in case, when Mrs Carter leaves, Bucky runs Stevie through a quick bath.

Natalia's texted Bucky her address and Bucky recognizes it as a nice apartment complex just a short drive away. He's not sure what he should wear. It's not a date, not really, he thinks, because he's bringing his son and that's not typically date etiquette, and the restaurant they're visiting isn't exactly fancy, so he puts on a dressier shirt and dresses Stevie up in a cute t-shirt and hat and puts him in the car. Bucky pulls the mirror down in the drivers seat and runs a brush through his hair hastily and frowns. He's got thick, brown hair and his grooming skills leave something to be desired, so the tips reach his shoulders, but, he figures, at least he's cleanshaven. He pulls a rubber band off the handle of the brush and fiddles with his hair while Stevie makes noises in the back, not sure what to do with it. Finally, he decides to leave it down and he tries not to think too hard about the horrible state of his car as he backs out and heads towards Natalia's apartment.

They arrive just a little late and Natalia's standing outside in the parking lot with a purse slung over her shoulder. She's wearing a nice pair of jeans and a black t-shirt and her hair is again in those beautiful waves. She grins when she recognizes Bucky through the window of his car when he pulls up. Bucky gets out of the car and runs around to the other side and opens the door for her graciously.

"Hello," Natalia says as she slips gracefully into the car. Bucky almost cringes to see her sitting there, looking so beautiful in contrast to his old, dilapidated Toyota. She deserves a limo, he thinks as he goes around to the other side and gets back into the drivers seat.

"Hey," he says. "How are you doing?"

Natalia flips her hair a little and Bucky starts to pull out. Stevie gurgles in the back.

"I'm alright," she tells him and smiles, then turns around and cooes at Stevie. "Hello again, buddy!" She says and Stevie makes some delighted baby noises. Then, back to Bucky. "How are you?" She asks.

Tired, Bucky thinks. "I'm good," he says and smiles at her. "Ready for some of the best American food you've ever had?" She laughs.

"I'm ready!" She exclaims.

Bucky usually doesn't take Stevie out. Restaurants are typically a no, with so many people and so many allergens and so much potential risk. But today's a special occasion, he figures, and Stevie deserves a treat.

And he's excited to have a whole dinner to talk to Natalia.

They're seated at the restaurant and Bucky starts to look through the kids meals options and when they bring out a high chair for Stevie, he takes anti-bacterial wipes out of his pocket to wipe it down with. Natalia watches over the top of her menu curiously.

"Germaphobe?" She asks and Bucky shakes his head as he stands out of his seat to settle Stevie into his, balancing the baby between his arm and his torso as he lowers him in.

"Just being careful," he explains. "Stevie's got a bad immune system and I just like to be sure he's not being exposed to anything."

"That must make things sort of difficult," Natalia says and Bucky shrugs a little, blowing some hair out of his face before he pulls his chair back out and sits down.

"It's not easy," he admits. "But it's worth it, to keep Stevie healthy."

"Of course," Natalia says and smiles, then she sets her menu down and leans over the table at him. "So you adopted him?" She asks and Bucky nods. He can see the questions in her eyes and he sighs a little.

"It's a really long story," he says. He's not sure he knows where to begin. But Natalia waits for him patiently and so he keeps talking. "I had these friends, in the army," he says. "Sarah and Joseph. We got close and they wanted to be married once they were out and they told me they'd name me their kid's godfather. And you know, I just sort of laughed along at the time. Yeah, sure, Joseph, that's sweet. But, turns out," Bucky shrugs. "They really meant it. And when I got back home, I found out they'd really gotten married and had kids, like they'd always wanted. Sarah was pregnant and they were both so excited." Bucky starts to lose himself in the memory, and his eyes water. "They were gonna be really happy." He looks down and he's already set the menu down and Natalia's clinging to his every word and he stares at the table. "They probably shouldn't have trusted me like they did, still insisting I be attached to their family like that. But they did." He's not sure how much he should tell Natalia about the condition he was in when he returned from war. He decides to leave it up to her imagination. She can't possibly imagine anything worse than the truth. "Then, Stevie was born prematurely and he was so small and so sick and then Sarah and Joseph got into a car wreck and died. A car wreck." He looks up, hoping the irony sinks in for her. "They survived a war zone, they got out, and they were gonna be happy, and then some guy gets drunk at a bar and drives himself home and that's it for them. That's the end." He looks down again. He's probably scaring her. He draws circles on the wooden table with his finger and glances back up to check her response. She's still listening and she looks heartbroken. "Sorry, I don't mean to get emotional," he says quietly and it almost sounds ridiculous because his voice is void of feeling. He sounds dead. But he's locking it up inside and he's biting off the ends of his words to keep from saying what might be considered 'too much'. "I was really angry about their deaths. For a really long time."

"I understand," Natalia says quietly, encouraging him, but she doesn't understand, not really. If she understood, if she knew everything, she'd get up and run out of the restaurant immediately. She'd call child services and tell them to take Stevie away immediately. If she really, truly understood, she'd know he wasn't normal and he wasn't good and he was dangerous and broken and not worth her time.

But he doesn't say this. After all, he still has a story to finish.

"So, Stevie was legally supposed to go to me," he continues. "I was his godfather, and the last person he had in the world, but I was…" He frowns now and stops himself. "They didn't want to give him to me. I fought for him."

"Why?" Natalia asks. Bucky shrugs.

"I was the last person he had," Bucky says. "In the whole world. Stevie was all alone and he was relying on me and I couldn't let them, I couldn't just…" He stops himself. Don't get too emotional, he tells himself. "I had to be there for him. Like his parents were there for me, when I needed them. I guess I saw myself in the little guy. We were both really alone. I needed him as much as he needed me."

Natalia nods understandingly and when the waitress brings their drinks, she sips on it thoughtfully, still listening.

"It was really hard," Bucky says and he's not sure why he's still talking about it. He could be done now, but he's not. "The court was brutal. I had to prove to them I could do it and keep Stevie in a nice home. I had to have a house and it had to be clean and safe and baby-proof when the social worker came by and I had to have a solid job and prove that I was willing to sacrifice for him and love him and take care of him. Had to pass drug tests and psych exams and make court dates. It felt like no one was on my side, no one wanted me to take this baby. But I proved it, in the end. I passed all their tests and they signed the adoption papers and I've had him for a little over a year now." He looks over at Stevie and smiles a little, reaching over to pat his hair. "It was worth it."

Natalia is looking at him with concern now, and her eyebrows come together.

"Why were they so hard on you?" She asks and now she's really asking why and Bucky isn't sure how to say it.

He avoids her eyes.

"The army, it was sort of a mess for me," he admits. "Nothing went right. And when I came back, I was… Well, I guess I could see why they'd be concerned. I might be concerned, in their positions. I might not have given a baby to a guy like me."

Natalia's staring at him and he awkwardly brushes his hair back from his face. For a moment, he's worried that he's not sure whether telling her the truth or letting her picture it for herself is worse.

"But the point is that Joseph and Sarah trusted me, even then," he says. "And I love Stevie and I've worked as hard as I can every day I've had him to take care of him. I want to give him the best home I can, with the time we've both got."

Natalia nods quietly as he wraps up his story and takes a sip of her drink. When the waitress returns, they give their orders and Bucky helps Natalia order in English and gets Stevie another cup of chocolate milk. When the waitress leaves, Natalia turns back to him.

"That's quite a story," she says to him and Bucky nods a little.

"I'm full of stories," he says, although he's not quite sure why he says it. It's not like he should tell her any of his stories. None of them have happy endings.

Like the story about his arm. He knows she wants to ask and he's seen her eyes flicker to his sleeve once or twice, but she's too polite to say anything. And he's not entirely sure what he'd say if she asked, anyway. How could he explain? He decides if she asks, he'll stay minimal. Train accident, he'll say. During the war, he'll add. Let her imagine the rest.

Their food comes out soon, one pizza with both Natalia and Bucky's favorite toppings, and Bucky puts one slice on a smaller plate to scrape the top off and cut into small pieces for Stevie.

"But what about you?" Bucky says. "You must have some stories." Natalia looks at him and smiles as she takes a bite of her pizza.

"I do," she admits and takes a minute to swallow her pizza. "I grew up in Russia," she starts with a thoughtful smile, as though thinking she ought to start at the beginning. "I lived there my whole life. This is the first time I'll be out of the country for so long."

"Must be scary," Bucky says and she shakes her head.

"Maybe," she says and her eyes shift up to his and a beautiful smile spreads across her face. "But not anymore. See, I'm already making friends!" Bucky smiles back and nods.

"Yeah," he says. "You are."

This is nice, he thinks. No, no, this is great. He hasn't had a friend in a long time. Not since Sarah and Joseph and he thinks, sitting at this table across from this woman, that he's been really, really lonely and it was all too easy to realize that now that someone was calling him a friend again.

Natalia continues the conversation.

"So, you know what I do," she says to him with a smile. "But I don't know about you."

"Oh, it's not very interesting," Bucky says and he coaxes Stevie into another bite of pizza. Natalia raises an eyebrow.

"Let me guess," she says and starts to tap her chin, making obvious 'hmm' noises and Bucky laughs. "It's some sort of office thing, in the city, yeah?" She says and Bucky nods. "Your uniform is a polo and slacks, which is very cute by the way, you look good in a collared shirt." He doesn't quite know what to say to this, but he's flattered, and he just looks down and smiles. Natalia continues to muse. "You had a satchel. Is it some sort of telephone company?"

"Nope," Bucky says.

"Real estate?" Natalia continues. "You look like you could be real estate."

"I do?" Bucky asks and Natalia nods.

"I could see you selling houses," she says, squinting at him as though she's really contemplating this and Bucky laughs and shakes his head.

"Well, it's not that either," he says.

"Alright, I fold," Natalia replies. "Tell me."

"I'm afraid it's going to let you down," Bucky tells her with a grin and a shrug. "I just do filing work for an accounting company. It's nothing interesting at all."

"You're an accountant?" She asks and he shakes his head.

"No, no. More like an accountant's secretary," he explains and shrugs his shoulders a little hopelessly. "Not exactly a dream job, but it puts a roof over Stevie's head, so it's a blessing all the same."

"You're a very selfless man," Natalia comments and Bucky just smiles at her.

"I'm really not," he says. "I just do what I have to do to get along, just like everyone else. Survival." He meets her eyes and she stares back at him intently.

"So, what _is_ your dream job?" Natalia asks and Bucky takes a bite of his pizza, which he's been neglecting, and thinks.

"I dunno," he says. "I haven't thought about it much. It used to be the army, back when I was a kid, but when that didn't work out, I guess I never had a Plan B." Natalia nods as she listens to him intently. "Maybe once I don't have to take care of Stevie, I'll pick up some sort of hobby."

"It's just a suggestion," Natalia says and she smiles playfully. "But dancing is a fantastic hobby."

By the end of the meal, the subject had changed several times. They had begun to chat lightheartedly, Bucky asking her how the transition was into America and her complaining about her terrible English skills and Stevie occasionally yelling and clapping his hands together to get attention from the both of them. When asked about dessert, they both enthusiastically decided to stay a little longer.

"Just to test American cake," Natalia says, although Bucky is certain it's no different from Russian cake.

"Just because Stevie will cry if we don't," he adds, although Stevie would never have known either way if he was missing out on cake or not.

They stay the extra ten minutes and Stevie is admittedly delighted to be fed chocolate cake and Bucky and Natalia beam at each other across the table. He gets the feeling she genuinely likes him. He starts to think she might really enjoy his company.

When he drops her off that night, she thanks him and mentions that they ought to do it again sometime.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Bucky is consumed with thoughts of Natalia. He floats through that evening and the next day with a dreamy look in his eyes as he remembers her laughter and her smile. She is a risk. She is exciting. And the mystery she is. She could be any number of things and any number of people, but what he knows about her is that she is kind and she is understanding and she's shown an interest in him and his baby and he can't remember anyone ever having done that before in his life.

He takes Stevie home and gives him his medicines, a variety of inhalers and an immunodeficiency shot, and plays with him until Stevie's falling asleep on the carpet, and then Bucky picks him up and tucks him into his bed with a kiss.

The next few days are rather uneventful. Bucky goes to work and comes home to take Stevie on walks and give him his medicine and stare at the ceiling until morning. His flashbacks still come and the nightmares still torment, but he keeps moving. He always does. He has to. But his excitement about Natalia admittedly makes it a little more bearable.

On Saturday, Natalia calls again.

"I was thinking about taking a bus tour of the city, but I think you'll be a far more effective tour guide," she tells him. "What do you say?"

"I'll get the stroller ready," he says and she shows up at his door minutes later, a big smile on her face and her purse slung over her shoulder. Bucky invites her in, even though the place is a mess and he knows it, and she greets Stevie with kisses and cooing. He's gathering up the things Stevie will need, packing emergency medicines and some toys into the diaper bag on the counter and Natalia is holding Stevie and playing with him by the kitchen table. He stops for a minute and watches her, watches her hold his baby and love him and for a split second, he deeply regrets that Stevie doesn't have a mom. It's not something he thinks about a lot because he's got so many other concerns on his mind, but for that moment, he wonders if Stevie's missing out. If there's a kind of love that Bucky can't give him and Bucky swallows.

Natalia's good with Stevie and she's beautiful with a baby in her arms. Bucky wonders if things might be different, if he had been a different person and led a different life. He wonders who he might be, and if the scene in front of him would be part of it.

Once they're ready, they take the same bus Bucky takes to work into the city and Natalia holds Stevie the whole way there, bouncing him on her knee. He can hear her singing to him softly sometimes, songs he's never heard in Russian, and he leans in a little closer to hear.

The city is enormous and, Bucky thinks, beautiful. He's excited to show Natalia all his favorite parts, the parts a bus tour would never show her. He wants to find the restaurants he ate in growing up and the places he used to know. But honestly, he'd see everything with her. He'd even take her to the tourist traps and let her see those if she really wanted to. He wants to see her see them.

They start on a street Bucky's all too familiar with, one he used to walk every day when he was a kid. They get Stevie settled into the stroller and Bucky pushes him along, Natalia at his side.

"I know some really great places we can eat today," he says. "And some fun sights to see. We can try to find something that'll entertain us _and_ Stevie."

"I'll follow you, tour guide!" Natalia says to him and smiles. Bucky smiles back. "You know this place so well," she continues after a beat. "You've lived here a long time?"

"I've lived here my whole life," Bucky says. "And I came back after the army." Natalia nods.

"You always say 'the army'," she says casually and Bucky looks over. "You never say 'the war'." He feels something in him freeze up and he looks away. The subject changed? What happened to talking about the city?

"Didn't do a lot of fighting," he admits as they walk. "I wasn't really in the war, but I _was_ in the army."

"How long did you spend there?" She asks and Bucky can feel his story unraveling for her. He's not sure he's ready to say.

"Only about a year," he says. "About a year with the US army. I would have been there longer, but I was taken prisoner during my third battle." Natalia's watching him, he can feel her eyes. His hand tightens on the handle of the stroller.

"How long…," she starts to ask, and then trails off. Bucky swallows. When he answers, it's in a voice as low as a whisper.

"Seven years," he says. The answer raises as many questions as it answers, because why would the enemy keep useless prisoner for so long, and he knows why, but he's only known Natalia for about a week and he's not ready to explain the gritty details and he thinks she can see that in his face and she stops asking.

"I'm sorry," she says and Bucky just looks down.

"Don't worry about it," he says. "I'm fine now." This isn't entirely true. He doesn't care to share these details, either.

They pack the day with activities. They walk up and down Main Street and Wall Street and 42nd Street and Bucky discreetly slips a paper mask over Stevie's mouth just in case, even though Stevie absolutely hates it and keeps trying to pull it off. Bucky didn't plan on it, but they wind up at tourist traps anyway and Natalia buys herself 'I 3 NY' t-shirts and hats and mugs and scarves, although Bucky tells her again and again that she can get them so much cheaper in Chinatown. He takes her to Broadway and she gets excited about the performers and the dancers and he learns that she's always dreamed of seeing a performance on a Broadway stage.

At one of the sites they visit, Bucky asks Natalia if she'd like him to take her picture in front of it and she declines, but to his surprise, starts unbuckling Stevie from his seat in the stroller and hands him to Bucky.

"Turn around," she says and holds up her cell phone. "We're taking a selfie!" Bucky's not sure what to do when Natalia squeezes into the frame next to him, tilting her head towards his, and he just smiles awkwardly and holds up Stevie and she takes a few shots and saves them.

"You sure you want me in your pictures?" He says incredulously and she just looks up at and smiles at him.

"Why wouldn't I, silly?" She asks and then her smile becomes teasing and she adds, "I gotta get some pictures of the _real_ wonders of New York, right?" He doesn't understand for a moment that she's talking about him and when it finally sinks in as he's buckling Stevie back into the stroller, he's stunned and he's missed his opportunity to flirt back.

You're a real joke at this dating thing, Barnes, he thinks to himself.

They eat in Hell's Kitchen and when Stevie starts to yawn, Natalia suggests they sit down somewhere for a while to let him rest and Bucky almost doesn't hear her because he's staring so deeply into her eyes.

He's beginning to admit to himself that maybe he really likes Natalia.

They sit in Central Park and Bucky cradles Stevie and they listen to guitar music they can hear on the wind from somewhere nearby.

"So," Bucky says awkwardly, half because he's not good at starting conversation and half because he wants to ask her what this is, what they're doing. He wants to gauge her motive for talking to him. "There's no Mr Romanova then?"

"Yes, there is," Natalia says matter of factly and Bucky freezes. "Which is exactly why I'm sitting with you in this park and getting dinners with you and flirting with you. Because there's _totally_ another man." She cracks a smile and Bucky feels relief wash over him. She was kidding. He grins.

"That was a stupid thing to ask," he says of himself and she laughs.

"It really was," she agrees, grinning playfully at him, then she leans back and crosses her legs. "No, there's no one. There hasn't been anyone for a while, actually."

Bucky's dated two girls, both during high school, and his life has been such a trainwreck ever since that he's had no time to try again. He is woefully unprepared for things like flirting and wooing and beautiful women.

"Same here," he says. Natalia's eyes travel down his face and then she's looking at her hands in her lap.

"I was married once," she confides in him. "It ended pretty fast." Bucky doesn't know what to say. There's no remorse in her voice and she sounds as though she's simply stating facts. Should he say something consoling?

"I'm sorry," he says and she looks up. He notices then that her eyes are shining. He swallows.

"Thank you," she says. "But it's alright, really. We rushed into it."

"He wasn't right?" Bucky asks and Natalia looks at him for a minute, as though attempting to gauge how much she can tell him. He thinks he knows because he's done the same thing.

"It was complicated," she finally says. "After the third miscarriage, things just fell apart. I thought we wanted the same things, but I guess our relationship wasn't strong enough. I still don't know sometimes." Bucky still doesn't know what to say. His heart breaks.

"I'm so sorry," he says again. "That sounds really painful." She only nods.

"It was a few years ago," she says and offers him a forced smile. "Old wounds."

"I've never been married," Bucky admits after a second, primarily because he's just not sure what to say next. "Never been in a really solid relationship, either." He realizes too late that this might not be a prudent thing to say. "Pretend I didn't say that," he adds pitifully a second later and she laughs.

"That's cute," she says and he curses himself.

"I feel like I ought to explain," he says. "I joined the army at 18. There hasn't been a lot of time in my life for dating."

"18?" Natalia exclaims.

"The day I graduated high school," he says.

"What ever for?" She cries and he shrugs.

"I wanted to get out of my house," he explains. "My dad… It was a bad situation."

"That's terrible," Natalia says and honestly, Bucky agrees.

"He's gone now," Bucky says and he leans down and kisses Stevie carefully on the nose. "It's fine." Then, "Did you have a good relationship with your parents?" He asks and Natalia looks at him. He can't read her expression and when she finally looks away, she says, "I was raised in an orphanage."

Bucky feels as though this conversation has really taken a dark turn and he wishes he had something lighthearted to say.

"Oh," he finally says awkwardly. She shifts her shoulders and he wonders if she's scooting further from him on purpose.

"It wasn't terrible," she says. "Orphanages in the movies, they're always awful and bleak and horrible and they have little girls scrubbing floors with toothbrushes." She chuckles a little. "That's not quite the reality of it. It wasn't ideal, but I never scrubbed anything with my toothbrush except for my teeth." Bucky thinks he can laugh now and he tries.

"That's good to hear," he says and she offers him a smile.

"I always used to dream of having a mother, though," she says. "I don't know what happened to my parents." Then, "is this strange to say?" She asks. "I feel as though I'm telling you deep, dark secrets and we've only recently met."

"_Are_ they deep, dark secrets?" Bucky asks and she looks into his eyes and shakes her head a little.

"I guess not anymore," she says.

There's a quiet moment where they both sit and contemplate this and Stevie snores quietly, cuddled up in the crook of Bucky's arm.

"If it helps," he finally says. "I've told you a few deep, dark secrets."

"You have?" Natalia asks and he nods.

"Well," he adds. "I guess it's not necessarily a secret, but I don't exactly go around introducing myself as a former POW." He gives her a crooked, self-deprecating smile that he hopes will make her feel a little better about sharing, and luckily, he sees her face relax a little.

"No," she says with a bit of a laugh. "I suppose you wouldn't."

At the end of the day, they take the bus back to the neighborhood and Natalia walks Bucky and Stevie home in order to retrieve her car from their driveway. She leans against her car and puts her hands into her jacket pockets and looks at him. Stevie is asleep on Bucky's shoulder and Bucky looks back at her. He feels as though they do this often, just look at each other. For a brief moment, he wonders if she takes the time to admire his features as often as he does her, but he dismisses the thought immediately. It's ridiculous.

"Thank you for today," she says to him finally.

"It was my pleasure," Bucky says, and he thinks the moment might hold more tension if he didn't have a thirteen month old drooling onto his shirt collar, but Natalia's eyes are still locked onto his. He watches her stand from where she'd been leaning against her car and approach him, and once she's close enough that he thinks she might kiss him, her eyes shift from him and down to Stevie and she rests a hand on his head and kisses his tiny, round cheek.

"Bye-bye, baby," she whispers, and then she looks back up at Bucky and her blue eyes are like nothing he's ever seen before.

He doesn't see it coming when she grabs his collar and yanks him down to her and presses her mouth against his. He holds onto Stevie tighter and wishes he had a second arm to wrap around her waist, but these thoughts come second to the firework of emotion in his head.

Her lips are soft and fierce and she kisses passionately. Bucky feels dizzy, being kissed like this, and prays he's not a bad kisser when he starts to retaliate. She slings her arm around his neck, the side that doesn't have a tiny baby, and wraps the other around his waist and drags him closer.

When she pulls away, Bucky is left spinning. He straightens up little by little and her hand is resting on his chest as she looks up at him.

"What was that for," he says dizzily and a smile spreads across her face.

"That was because I wanted to," she says.

"Oh," Bucky breathes and she studies his face.

"Is that a good oh or a bad oh," she asks and it's his turn to smile.

"That was a really good oh," he says. "But possibly a confused oh."

"Confused?" Natalia asks.

"Why are you bothering with me?" Bucky asks. "I'm a loser. You could do so much better."

"What?" Natalia says, surprised. "Do you really think that?" Bucky scoffs.

"I'm not going to lie to myself," he says. "Yeah, I really think that. If I've learned anything in the two years I've been back, it's that women don't go for guys with one arm and a baby." Natalia frowns and she looks down. When she looks back up, she's still frowning.

"I like you, Bucky," she says. "There's no conspiracies back here, no one's paying me off to make out with you." Bucky doesn't know what to say.

"I like you, too," he says quietly. She starts to smile a little warmly.

"Then can I see you tomorrow?" She asks and he nods quietly. She rests her hand on his shoulder again and steps closer and leans up on her tiptoes to kiss him again on the mouth, gently this time, longingly this time, and pulls back slowly. "Alright," she says and starts to walk to her car again. "Call me!"

"I will," Bucky says and she leaves him on the front step of his house with Stevie snoring quietly on his collar and the streetlight flickering in the corner.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

The next day, Bucky's at the doctor's office again, but for once it's not because of Stevie. He's got his shirt off and he's looking away while Dr Stark examines what's left of his left arm.

Every so often, when Bucky is feeling particularly hopeful, he'll pop back into Stark's office and ask about the odds. How likely is it he can find a functioning prosthetic? The past two years have told Bucky that the likelihood is pretty low.

It's not that there aren't prostheses out there. Bucky's seen them and some even have working elbows and fingers and wrists and he wants it so badly he could scream, but there are so many complications. Money is the biggest one. His insurance only covers so much, and he has to save up for Stevie's needs first. There's just not enough money on his paycheck for the sort of luxury like two functioning limbs.

"If you could get that military assistance you were talking about last time," Dr Stark says and raises his eyebrow expectantly at Bucky. Bucky looks away.

"I don't think I can," he admits. He looked into it, tried to apply, but the red tape was extensive. The same people who didn't want to give him a baby also didn't want him benefitting from government funds. On darker days, he couldn't blame them. "It's, um, complicated," he says. "But come on, there has got to be something you can do," he begs quietly and Dr Stark looks at him and throws up his hands.

"We've been at this for so long," he says. "And you aren't ready to give up yet?"

"No," Bucky says adamantly and Stark shrugs and puts his hands into his pockets.

"Well, with an attitude like that, nothing can stop you," he says.

"You'll look into it?" Bucky asks.

"I've been looking into it," Stark responds. "I really have, Bucky." He sounds exhausted. Bucky waits for the 'but'. "I'll keep looking," Stark finally says. "But you know a large percentage of arm amputees forgo the prosthetics. You might get one and wind up hating it. A lot of people do."

"I'd at least like a chance," Bucky says. "I just want a chance with it."

Stark says nothing.

"I've got a toddler at home," Bucky adds. "He's just barely learning to walk. It'd be a lot easier to take care of him if I could at least pick him up with two arms." He feels like he's begging. He doesn't know what to do anymore.

"Mr Barnes," Stark finally says. "We'll keep trying. I promise."

Bucky takes the cue to pull his shirt back on and he leaves the office defeatedly.

He finds Stevie at home with Mrs Carter and when she leaves, he puts a pot of spaghetti-os on the stove. Stevie's playing with blocks in his high chair and he occasionally waves one at Bucky and says, "bu-bu-buh," and Bucky's not sure if he's trying to say 'block' or 'Bucky'. The pot is starting to steam-

-and he pulls the trigger. he watches a bullet go in one side and out the other, taking blood and brain matter and bone with it, and the target collapses to the floor. he doesn't know why, but tears are suddenly springing up in his eyes. he pulls the scarf down from where it's tied around his mouth and his knees turn to jello and he drops onto the ground next to the body. blood is pooling. he starts to vomit.

he sits next to the body for how long, he's not sure, but it must be a long time because the sun is coming up by the time he stumbles away. he's not sure where his gun is. he makes it to the extraction point hours late and a handler hits him so hard across the face that his vision goes black in one eye.

Stevie is howling. Bucky can hear it, and he realizes he's sitting on the ground. He's hugging his knees to himself. On the stove, he can hear the pot of spaghetti-os bubbling over and burning. He's trembling. He can still feel the tingling of that hand across his face and he can still feel the hotness of the blood as it soaks through the knees of his pants. He can taste bile rising in his mouth and he's not sure if that's real or not. He doesn't know what's real or not.

He buries his face in the crook of his elbow and takes shuddering sobs.

A minute later, he forces himself to crawl over to the stove and at least turn the burner off so the mess starting to smoke on the heat won't burn the house down, and then he sinks again to the ground and lays there, trying to cover his face. Stevie's screaming has turned to whimpers and Bucky realizes that he's staring at Bucky, scared. Bucky rolls over onto his stomach and tries to fight the way his stomach heaves. He realizes he's still sobbing. He's scaring Stevie. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't think he can stand.

A couple minutes later, Bucky hauls himself to his feet and holds onto the counter for white-knuckled support. He looks over at Stevie and Stevie stares back. They're both streaked in tears and Stevie's starting to hiccup.

When Bucky starts to try to make his way back over to Stevie, Stevie becomes hysterical again and Bucky decides to stay on the other side of the room.

He swipes at his own cheeks, trying to dry them, but every time he does he can see that hole in that head and his tears come again. He didn't even know that person. He's not sure why it upsets him so badly, this particular incident. He supposes they all do, in their own ways.

After a while, Stevie starts to reach for Bucky. He's leaning over his high chair with his little arms outstretched, saying "Bu-Bu-Bu," and Bucky looks over at him. He can't seem to force himself to move. Stevie's starting to cry and his pleas become more desperate. "Bububububu!" He cries. Bucky drags himself again to his feet and leans himself against the wall, and then manages to half-walk half-stumble to Stevie. Bucky leans down and Stevie wraps his arms around his neck as tight as he can and Bucky picks him up and they both collapse back down onto the floor. Stevie squeezes Bucky and Bucky can feel him trying to kiss the portions of his face and neck that he can reach with wet little baby kisses, and Bucky wraps his arm around Stevie and squeezes back.

"I didn't mean to scare you, little guy," he says hoarsely. "I'm sorry. Can you forgive me?"

"Buh," Stevie says and Bucky lets out another shuddering sob and squeezes Stevie again.

"Thanks," he says and his voice sounds thick through the tears. "I love you, too."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Bucky's not really ready to call Natalia again. He's taken Stevie back to bed with him, where they laid for hours and Stevie seems to have forgotten about the incident in the kitchen. He's cuddling a stuffed animal now and wrapping himself up in a corner of one of Bucky's sheets and Bucky lays on his side and watches him roll around contentedly, considering Natalia. He promised he'd see her today, but every time he gets himself to stop crying, he starts again within the next ten minutes, and he feels completely drained. He doesn't want her to see him like this.

While he's thinking this over, weighing the pros and cons, his cell phone on the counter starts to buzz and he picks it up.

"Busy?" Natalia's text reads.

Bucky's not sure what to say and he mulls over responses for a while, probably too long to make Natalia wait.

"It's been a bad day," he finally replies. "Stevie and I are just gonna nap out the rest of the Sunday."

"Oh no!" Natalia responds almost immediately. ":((( Anything I can do to help?"

"Promise you'll come over tomorrow for dinner?" He asks. "I make a mean pot of spaghetti-os." Hopefully not like the one he made today, he thinks, but the joke is worth sending.

Natalia sends him a smiley face. ":) My favorite," she says. "I'll be there."

And Bucky thinks that's the end of it, but he's wrong. The doorbell rings maybe half an hour later and Bucky scrubs his face up and down with his hand and pulls his hair away from his eyes and makes his way to the front door. He doesn't bother to look through the peephole because he assumes it must just be a Fed-Ex driver or a door to door salesman or something of the like and he's entirely caught off guard when he sees Natalia standing on his doorstep holding a pie tin covered in foil.

"Oh," he says, almost too mortified to say anything else. His eyes are still red and swollen, he knows, and his hair is matted down with sweat. He's changed into an old t-shirt that's littered with holes and sweatpants and he's only wearing one sock. He looks like hell.

Natalia takes him in and swallows before recovering and thrusting the pie tin towards him. He balances the door on his hip and takes it slowly.

"You look…," Natalia starts and then stops herself. Bucky avoids her eyes. "Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine," he says, and then adds, "You just woke me up, that's all. I was just napping."

"Okay," Natalia says and she doesn't call him out on his red, watery eyes or the way his face is still drained of color. She looks down at the pie tin. "I don't bake," she says. "But I felt bad that you and Stevie had such a bad day, so I thought I ought to get you something. A pick-me-up. It's just grocery store brand, but I hope it's good anyway?" Natalia says. "I hope you aren't allergic to cherries." Bucky feels rude keeping her on the doorstep, but he can't invite her in. There are still blackened spaghetti-os plastered to the stove in there, and if she comes in, she might stay and Bucky doesn't think he can hold it together that long.

"That's really thoughtful of you," Bucky says. "Wow, thank you." He doesn't sound grateful. There's no emotion in his words, but he means every one of them. He just can't dredge up the energy to be excited right now.

"It's not a problem," Natalia says and she shrugs. "You deserve it." Then, he watches her step a little closer to him. "May I kiss you before I leave?" She asks quietly and when he doesn't protest, she leans forward and takes his chin in one hand and presses a kiss to his cheek. When she pulls away, Bucky's eyes are starting to water again. He feels sick to his stomach. "I'll see you tomorrow, Bucky," Natalia says and she's starting to back down the steps towards the driveway again.

"I'll see you then," he says and slowly shuts the door, then takes the pie to the kitchen and sets it on the counter next to the offending stovetop and barely makes it back to his bed and to Stevie before he starts to weep again.

He buries his face in a pillow. Stevie climbs on his back and kisses the top of his head while he bawls.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

The next day, a Monday, the routine begins again. Bucky drags himself out of bed wearily. Stevie's awake, so Bucky sets him up with a few books and toys in his crib and showers. When he gets out and dresses, his wet hair plastered to his face and the back of his neck, Stevie's having a sneezing fit that he can hear from down the hall. He hurries into the bedroom and when Stevie finishes, he scoops him up and pats his back.

"You better not be coming down with something, kid," he says and Stevie nestles his face into the crook of Bucky's neck. Bucky realizes that if he did, it would be his fault for exposing him to things like restaurants and New York City as a whole and he swallows a little and rubs Stevie's back a little faster. "Come on, Stevie, perk up, you're fine."

Bucky has already cleaned up the mess on the stove and he sits Stevie into his highchair and cuts up some fruit for his breakfast. He sits down with him and encourages him to open his mouth so Bucky can put a spoonful of chopped up bananas into it and Stevie just leans forward and puts his head down on his tray. Bucky's not sure what to do. He sets the plate of breakfast down and takes Stevie's little shoulder and makes him sit up, then puts his hand on his forehead. He's heating up and Bucky's starting to feel a fever coming on in his skin and he panics.

He finds the baby thermometer in the cupboard and Stevie's jumping up past 97, 98, 99 and Bucky wants to cry again.

He calls Mrs Carter and cancels and then calls Fury and cancels there, too. Fury is less than thrilled and wants to stay on the line to give him a lecture, but Bucky doesn't care. He calls the doctor's office and asks what he should do and makes an appointment to come in during the afternoon. In the meantime, he does everything he can think of. He puts Stevie into a lukewarm bath, but he's not interested in playing with his toys and instead he just frowns up at Bucky tiredly. He puts on the TV and tries to feed Stevie, but Stevie refuses and lays down on his back instead. Bucky's not sure what medicine to give him, so instead, he takes the baby back to the bedroom and lays down with him. That seems to be all Stevie has the energy to do anyway. A few minutes later, he turns around and throws up all over Bucky's pillow.

At the doctor's office, Stevie is diagnosed with pneumonia. He's prescribed some antibiotics and sent home and Nurse Carter gives them both a sad little wave from down the hall as they leave.

Bucky's trying very hard not to cry.

He calls Natalia.

"Stevie's got pneumonia," he says when she picks up. "And it's totally my fault."

"What?" Natalia says. Then, "hold on, Bucky, I'm coming over."

"You shouldn't," Bucky says to her. "Stevie's really sick; it's coming out both ends. The house is a mess, I'm a wreck."

"Exactly," Natalia says. "I'll help. I owe you now, you know," she explains. "For New York." Bucky thinks this makes it sound as though he has given her New York, and then he almost wishes that he could.

"Is baby vomit really a fair trade?" He says with a bit of a smile.

"I'll be over in twenty," Natalia says and hangs up. Bucky still wonders what it is she sees in him.

When she arrives, he lets her in and leads her to the sick Stevie, sleeping fitfully in his crib, drowsy from the medicine.

"He'll be up in another five minutes with diarrhea," Bucky says with a frown. "I've already had to throw away a pillowcase and change his sheets once." Natalia leans over the crib and fits her finger into Stevie's hand.

"Poor baby," she cooes. "Poor little thing."

"This could be really bad for him," Bucky says quietly.

"Well, it's not like it could be _good _for him," Natalia replies and Bucky steps back and takes a breath, turning away from the crib. She doesn't understand.

"It's not like that," he says back. "He's sick, I mean it. He's really weak." Natalia turns around and he can see her out of the corner of his eye.

"What do you mean?" She asks and Bucky crams his hand into his pocket.

"He's got something called 'severe combined immunodeficiency', which basically means he's got no immune system to speak of and he'll get sick with everything, and _really _sick." Bucky shifts his weight a little. He's making room for the pain in his heart. He can't look Natalia in the eye. "But, uh, that's just the medical garbage, you know? What it really means, what matters is that, um," Bucky stops, because he stops here every time, like his throat closes up and he can't say the words. He forces himself to. "What it means is that they've told me he probably won't live past five years old at the most."

He doesn't look over at Natasha, but he doesn't have to to feel the tension in the air as she stares, slack-jawed and wordless. He hears her swallow.

"Bucky…," she says. "That's horrible."

"Yeah," Bucky says. When he looks back up and over, Natasha is staring at him and she's approached him from behind, concern in her face.

"What are you going to do?" She whispers and Bucky braces himself against the heartbreak.

"I've asked myself that so many times," he replies and runs his hand through his hair. "I really don't know. Every time he gets sick-every fever, every asthma attack, every doctor's visit-that might be it for him." Bucky's tried to be strong, but he can't keep the ocean of sadness from drowning his heart. A few tears fall down his cheeks without permission. "Might be the last time I see him."

When he looks over, Natalia's eyes are shining too. She's cupping her mouth with both hands.

"That's the worst thing I've ever heard," she whispers, her voice thick and muffled and Bucky blinks hard and nods.

"It's made it really hard," he says. Then, he looks in her watering eyes. "Thank you for being here. I've… I've never had someone to tell that to before. No one's ever really understood." Before he can brace himself, Natalia's flinging her arms around him and squeezing him, her head on his shoulder, and, caught off guard, it takes a second for him to raise his arm and hug her back.

Natalia gives long, meaningful hugs, and Bucky sinks into her embrace like a ship going down. It seems as though she's holding him up and he closes his eyes and sucks in a shaking breath and realizes that he's never really been held like this before. It feels really, really good.

She pulls away when Stevie wakes up and they hear horrible heaving sounds. Bucky races over to the crib and turns him over on his side and he vomits all over Bucky's arm. Natalia runs to his aid, grabbing up the now sobbing and screaming Stevie and Bucky feels his gag reflex start to fight him as he runs into the restroom down the hall and turns on the showerhead to stick his whole arm under.

When he returns, he finds Natalia bouncing Stevie comfortingly and wiping up his mouth.

"I think he just threw up his medicine along with his lunch," Bucky says frustratedly as he gathers up Stevie's now soiled sheets and blankets and takes them off the miniature mattress.

"So do we give him another dose?" Natalia asks and Bucky shrugs wearily.

"I have no idea. I guess?" He says and Natalia follows him into the laundry room as he dumps the sheets into the washing machine. He tries not to think about how much easier life would be if he could go through it with two hands. Then, doing things like stripping mattresses and opening machines wouldn't have to be so difficult. He's a little embarrassed for Natalia to see how long it takes him to pick things up and set things down and open things up and scoop everything back up again, but, he tells himself, at least he's managing.

They get Stevie to drink another tiny cup of thick, syrup-y antibiotic and Bucky hands him a bottle of warm milk that he starts to drink.

"He can't keep that down," Natalia mentions and Bucky shrugs.

"He can't _starve_," he replies defeatedly.

Stevie's quieted by the bottle and Natalia cradles him while he drinks it. They sit down at the kitchen table. Bucky watches him stare up at her with those big baby blue eyes and Natalia starts to make kissy faces down at him. Stevie cracks a small smile with his lips still around the tip of the bottle.

"So, what is it?" Bucky says to her after a while. "I'm just the only friend you got in America? I'm the only person to speak Russian?" Natalia looks up at him.

"What?" She says and Bucky shrugs.

"I'm trying to figure it out," he tells her. "Am I just the one person you can communicate with? Is that it?"

"Figure out…," Natalia says with a frown and trails off, then he sees it dawn on her. "Oh! Are you talking about what you said earlier? After our daytrip?"

"I know you said you like me, but that just doesn't click for me," Bucky says honestly. "It doesn't add up. And your English is weak, you said it yourself, so that must limit the pool of guys you have to choose from."

"Are you telling me you think I'm only here because you speak Russian?" Natalia says incredulously and Bucky shrugs weakly. He watches her face turn cold and wonders if he's made a mistake somewhere. "You've really got the gall to think I'm just using you? After all we've done for each other?"

"I didn't say that," Bucky backpedals quickly, especially because he's thinking he definitely hasn't done enough for her, but Natalia's already looking angry.

"Look, Barnes," she says sharply. "If I want guys, I can get guys. I didn't kiss you just because I'm desperate."

"I didn't mean-," Bucky says, but she keeps talking.

"I'm not here holding _your _sick baby because I just want you to do something for me," she continues. "Let's get one thing straight, Russian speaking or not, if I want men, I'll get them. If I need a tour guide, I'll get that, too. I chose you, Bucky," she says and then leans forward to enunciate her words in his face. "Because. I. Like. You. And I do things for you because you're my friend, not because you're some 'last man on Earth' in a country of English speakers."

Bucky isn't sure how to respond once she finishes. He's still reeling.

"I'm sorry," he finally says. "I didn't mean to, uh, insinuate anything. I didn't mean to say you were desperate. It's just, you know," he swallows, trying to explain himself. "Can't see why anyone would like a guy like me, that's all."

"You want a list?" Natalia says dryly and he thinks she's joking and he's about to awkwardly tell her no, but she continues before he can. "You're _so_ sexy," she says, which really catches him off guard. "You look like some sort of rugged male model, with the pouty lips and the hair and the jawline. You've got this expression where you look up at me through your eyelashes and combined with that subtle American accent you have and it's seriously to die for."

Bucky has never considered himself sexy before. He's a little shocked. He lets her continue.

"You're kind and selfless and gentle," she keeps going. "And when you've got this tiny baby in your arm, you just look so safe. I've never met anyone whose gentleness shines through their eyes before.

"You're endlessly interesting to talk to. I feel like every time we have a conversation, I learn something new."

Bucky thinks he might be blushing. Natalia's not finished.

"You stopped to help a woman in the street that you didn't even know," she says. "To speak a language that, no doubt, dredges up some painful memories, and then continue to try to be her friend. And don't even get me started on Stevie."

"What about Stevie?" Bucky asks and Natalia scoffs.

"You take in and save a sick little baby, even though it'd be easier to let him live in an orphanage?" Natalia cries. "Even though everyone fights you and his care is expensive and he complicates your life? And you love him so, so much, when no one else would." Natalia hugs Stevie close to her and lets out a breath. "You're amazing."

Bucky is trying to take all this in. The way she describes him makes him sound like a prince, or a superhero. He's never seen himself this way. It's jarring.

"Wow," he finally says. "I don't know what to say."

"Just stop thinking I have ulterior motives," Natalia says and she looks down and makes more kissy faces for Stevie. "I'm here for you, Bucky, and just you." Natalia leans down and kisses Stevie. "And, of course, this little angel right here."

"Thank you," Bucky says quietly. He feels loved in a way he hasn't in a really long time. He thinks he might cry again.

"Don't thank me," Natalia says. "You don't need to thank me."

He knows it might be unusual to thank someone for their friendship and love, but he feels so grateful anyway.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

The next day, Bucky puts in extra hours at work, but he knows he's walking a thin line. Fury is glaring and his coworkers shuffle around him like they know something he doesn't and Bucky gets the sinking feeling that he's just one mistake away from being unemployed.

He works as fast as he can and tries to prove to Fury that he's getting a lot done, and when Fury stops by his cubicle, he apologizes for missing again profusely.

"My son was throwing up," Bucky says. "We had him in the hospital again, he's really miserable. And my babysitter is still sort of sick and I couldn't risk exposing him to even _more _illness-" Bucky would continue, but Fury's shaking his head and he trails off.

"No more excuses, Barnes," he says. "Just get your job done."

"Yes, sir," Bucky replies quietly and ducks his head under his cubicle again until Fury passes.

He receives a text later in the day.

"I'm at the grocery store," Natalia says. "Do you need anything?"

Actually, he needs a lot of things. He and Stevie are out of bread again and he's running low on laundry detergent and he's starting to think the removable water filter in his fridge has seen better days, but he's not sure if he can say this.

"Don't worry about me," he texts back.

"I'm getting Stevie some macaroni," Natalia replies. "Does he like the ones with the noodles or the ones with the shapes?"

"Nat, you really don't have to," Bucky says and he realizes after he sends it that it's the first time he's nicknamed her.

"Too late, Buck," Natalia replies and he smiles a little at the response. "Already in the cart. I hope he likes shapes."

"If the wheat bread is on sale," Bucky types and hesitates, then finishes with, "I'll pay you back for a loaf or two."

"You got it," she says.

Fury passes his cubicle. He hides his phone between his knees and pretends to be typing on his keyboard.

"Wanna have that dinner with the Barnes-Rogers family tonight?" He says once Fury passes. "I never got to show off my spaghetti-o skills."

"I'll be there," she says, and when he leaves that night at seven (a little too late for dinner, but he hopes Natalia doesn't mind), he's beaming.

She's there when he gets back and she and Mrs Carter are sitting in the living room, attempting to have a conversation. Bucky drops his bag on the floor by the kitchen table and he's so happy to see her there, sitting in his living room like she lives there too, because a part of him longs for the friendly familiarity. He thinks maybe Natalia does as well, and when she notices him, she jumps up and greets him in Russian.

"Your poor little baby is as sick as a dog," Mrs Carter says pityingly and Bucky finds Stevie lying on the floor on a blanket in the living room, surrounded by some of his toys and sucking on a plastic key ring.

"He is," Bucky replies, then adds, "did you wash that before he put it in his mouth?"

"Yes," Mrs Carter says and smiles over at Natalia. "Your Russian friend reminded me. I can't understand a word she says, but she seems sweet."

"Yeah," Bucky says and he steals a glance over Mrs Carter's shoulder at Natalia, who's hanging back with a lost smile. "She's great."

Bucky pays Mrs Carter and then it's just him and Natalia and Stevie again and he grins at her.

"Your bread is in the cupboard," she tells him and he wants to kiss her.

"Thank you," he says and they both close the distance between each other slowly. Bucky notices she's keeping eye contact as intensely as he is. When they're just seconds away from each other, he adds, "I owe you."

"We do that a lot," she says to him and he watches her eyes flicker down towards his mouth.

"Let's just call it even?" He says and she smiles before he steps up and puts his mouth on hers, his hand on her waist and Stevie rolling on the ground at his feet.

Natalia throws her arms around his shoulders and stands on tip toes to kiss him back. As they draw each other closer and closer, pressing themselves up against each other, he can feel her run hands through his hair. She smells like fine perfume and a scent he can't quite place, something about the smell of her skin and her breath and her hair and he breathes her, cherishing her hands on his body. Again, he wishes he had a second arm to wrap her up in completely instead of halfway.

They pull away when Stevie starts to scream and Bucky leans down and scoops him up, bouncing him and patting him and saying, "there, there, come on."

"Think he's hungry?" Natalia asks and Bucky nods.

"Probably," he says and Natalia reaches up and takes him while Bucky goes into the kitchen to start something. "What do you want?" He asks. "You have your choice of spaghetti-os, box macaroni and cheese, peanut butter sandwiches and frozen pizza." Natalia laughs.

"Wow, gourmet treatment," she teases while bouncing Stevie. "Bucky Barnes really knows how to treat a girl."

"What can I say," Bucky jokes with a silly shrug of his shoulders and he thinks to himself that he could look at her all day. She glows.

He think to himself that he can't remember the last time he was this happy. He can't remember the last time he laughed like this.

They lay Stevie down on the couch to rest and make the macaroni Natalia bought that day together. Natalia reads the instructions on the side out loud in stilted English and laughs at her own mistakes and Bucky takes one opportunity while stirring the boiling pasta to kiss her on the cheek.

When they sit down and eat together, they're both grinning widely.

Natalia holds Stevie on her lap and Bucky feeds him cheese-covered shapes spoonful by spoonful, but when Stevie starts to look a little green, they decide that's probably enough.

"We'll be seeing those noodles again before too long," Bucky comments and Natalia kisses Stevie on the top of his head.

"Poor Steve," she says. "Poor little guy deserves better."

"Yeah," Bucky says quietly. "He does."


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

The next day, as Bucky is giving Stevie all his medicines (and the list is really starting to get long now), he receives a call from Dr Stark.

"When can you come in for a fitting?" Stark asks and Bucky isn't quite sure he knows what he's hearing.

"What?" He says.

"I found a loophole for you," Stark says. "Pulled some strings in the prosthetist community, talked to your insurance, and people are sympathetic to your case. We can set you up on a monthly payment plan for a prosthetic arm."

Bucky has to take a second and swallow down the lump in his throat, but his voice is still wobbly and thick when he responds.

"That's…," he says and stops and tries to pull himself together again. "I can't tell you what this means to me."

"Don't worry about it," Stark says. "You might not be thanking me when you see the price tag."

"Thank you," Bucky says and pulls the phone away from his face for a second so he doesn't sob directly into the mouthpiece. "I can be there tomorrow."

"Come by the office at five," Stark says. "I'll see what we can do."

As soon as he hangs up, Bucky dials Natalia. He's over the moon, he's ecstatic. He feels as though things are starting to look up, at least a little.

"Hello?" Natalia says.

"Picture this," Bucky says in response, a smile so huge on his face that he can't wipe it off. "Me. With both arms."

"What?" Natalia says and Bucky laughs.

"I'm going to get a prosthetic!" He cries excitedly. "They're finally-" he stops, getting choked up, and then continues. "They're finally letting me get a prosthetic arm."

"That's great!" Natalia cries and Bucky is so happy he could dance. "When?"

"I'm not sure. We're working out the details tomorrow," he says.

"This is awesome!" Natalia cries. "You'll have to tell me what they say!"

"I will!" Bucky says. "I'll tell you all about it!"

The next day, Bucky makes plans with Natalia and drops Stevie off at her house after he gets back from work. She lives in apartment #215 and he realizes that he's never been there before, but when she opens the door and lets him in, it looks like a really nice place. It smells like she does, like perfume and the scent of her skin, and Stevie's happy to sit in her arms. He only cries a little when Bucky tries to leave, but Natalia manages to distract him and he loves her so much already that he's comfortable to cuddle with her on her couch.

"I'll pick him up as soon as I can," Bucky tells her as he's walking out her door.

"And tell me all about how the visit goes!" She replies and she waves and picks up Stevie's little hand to see him wave too as Bucky shuts the door behind him.

He hopes Stevie doesn't get sick on her couch.

At the doctor's office, they present him with the insurance files and the payment plan. Stark was right, it's not cheap, but Bucky thinks if he keeps a tight budget and cuts out a few luxuries, maybe stops eating out as often, he can afford it, and he signs the papers eagerly.

They take measurements that very day. Stark has the sleeves that'll fit over his residual limb and the straps that will keep the silicon bionic replacement on and they find the measurements that'll fit Bucky the best. It's not particularly comfortable, he notices, but he doesn't mind, especially if he might get the opportunity to look down and see two hands again for the first time in over two years. It sounds like a miracle. It sounds like a dream. He's elated.

He's told to come back in a week and when he returns to Natalia's apartment to pick up Stevie, he's on cloud nine.

He sits on her couch with her and describes the whole experience and she listens, holding Stevie on her lap.

"I've never seen you smile so wide," Natalia comments and almost as though he's punctuating her words, Stevie shouts baby talk enthusiastically and waves his hands in the air. Bucky, still grinning, looks down shyly.

"I'm really excited about this," he says. "This could change my whole life."

"Have you ever had one of these things before?" She asks and he shakes his head.

"Never. I've just seen them on other people," he says. He can see in her face that she's trying to think of a polite way to ask about his accident and he remembers what he'd decided he'd tell her. Train accident. After the army. He feels fear in his gut sink claws into his heart and some of his joy begins to dissipate. He'd almost forgotten for a while. Almost forgotten that one day, she'd have to know everything.

"You want to know how I lost my arm," he finally says and she lets out a breath of relief and bites her lip.

"I don't want to make you remember things you don't want to," she tells him and he shakes his head.

"It's fine," he says and runs over what he'll tell her in his head again.

Train accident.

After the army.

"After I was taken prisoner," Bucky starts and sucks in a breath. What is he doing? "After those seven years, they, uh, they put me on a train. And… I fell off the train. There was this ravine, it was somewhere in Europe, and there were… There were all these rocks and, um, by the time I'd reached the bottom, half my arm was ripped off. Just, gone. And the rest was so mangled, it was just…" He shudders and can't finish his sentence and he feels the scars on his skin tingle where he was sewn back up. "When they found me like that, they left me to die."

Natalia's gone white and she has one hand over her mouth.

"Americans found me," Bucky finishes weakly. "Got me help. I almost didn't make it because I'd lost so much blood and when I woke up, um…" He looks down at his left side and reaches over to grip his shoulder. "This was all I had."

He must have sounded pretty pitiful because he watches a few tears roll down Natalia's cheek and she wipes them away fiercely. Stevie looks back and forth between her and Bucky and starts making distressed noises, noticing Natalia's tears and Bucky's pale face.

"Shh, shhhh," Natalia tries to say and Stevie bursts into tears. Natalia looks up at Bucky desperately and it's not about Stevie. He can tell her heart is broken after his story. Don't pity me, he thinks. Don't be another one of those people. "I'm so sorry," she whispers and Bucky just swallows and looks down, his excitement from earlier almost entirely wiped out.

One day, she's going to have to know his entire story. She's going to have to hear about those torturous seven years. And then, Bucky realizes with an absolutely crippling fear that leaves him trembling, she'll probably never want to see him again.

With this, Bucky takes his baby back and stands.

"I'll get out of your way, I'm sure you're busy," he says.

"I'm not," she replies, looking up at him from the couch.

Bucky wants to leave now because he can feel an anxiety growing inside him and he thinks that soon, he may not be functional and he can't stand letting Natalia see him break down like that. He ought to leave while he can still stand up straight and form coherent sentences.

Natalia stands as well, presumably to walk him to the door, but then she says, "I actually have something for you."

Bucky watches her run through another door in her apartment and when she returns, she's holding what looks like a stack of thick paperback books. He can't take them because his one hand is busy holding Stevie, who's crying into his shirt, but Natalia holds them up. They're in Russian, naturally, and he reads the titles of a few.

"Are those parenting guides?" He asks and Natalia nods, taking the stack and looking at them one last time and then taking Stevie's diaper bag off of Bucky's shoulder and cramming them in. Bucky wants to make a joke (are you trying to tell me something, Miss Romanova?) but he doesn't think he can muster the smile necessary to make it lighthearted.

"I thought you might appreciate them," she says.

"Did you buy those for me?" Bucky asks. "You shouldn't have."

"I saw them at a used book sale recently and thought of you," Natalia says with a wave of her hand. "I'm sorry they're not in English."

"Thank you," Bucky says and she smiles a little at him and then reaches up and kisses him on the cheek.

"Of course," she says and Bucky leaves with her books in his bag and his skin warm where her lips had touched him.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

A few days later, Natalia invites Bucky to one of her dance rehearsals.

"The show isn't completely finished yet," she explains to him. "But I thought if you were free, maybe you'd like to sit in and see some of the dances." He does, he very much wants to, and so he agrees and he and Stevie sit in the very back of the gigantic New York dance studio and watch one day.

It's Stevie's naptime and Bucky brings a warm bottle of milk with him as insurance to keep Stevie quiet and the baby lays in Bucky's lap the whole time with his tiny hands around the bottle. Natalia's out there on the floor in a black leotard and ballet flats and Bucky watches her and the other dancers begin.

She's brilliant, he thinks, and the best dancer out there. She spins and he watches her stand on the very tips of her toes and when she leaps with the rest of the group, toes pointed and arms outstretched, she very nearly takes his breath away. He only tears his eyes away when Stevie grabs a handful of his hair and pulls.

But eventually, Stevie drifts off into sleep and Bucky puts the forgotten bottle away and watches a few more of Natalia's dances. Eventually, her numbers are over and she exits the room, downing a water bottle and Bucky's not quite sure where she is, so he stays put and watches a few more non-Natalia-centered dances until a voice behind his ear makes him jump.

"Hey, Bucky," Natalia says and Bucky whirls around to see her sitting down into the seat next to him. Her hair is pulled back and her face is still a little flushed from the exertion. He can see sweat on her neck when she leans over to pat Stevie's head. Then, her eyes travel up to him and she grins at him. "What did you think?"

"You're amazing," he breathes and she just laughs quietly and starts dabbing at her skin with a towel he hadn't noticed she had in her hand.

"Thank you," she says. "I'm glad you liked it."

"You looked like you were enjoying it, too," Bucky comments to her and she nods.

"I do," she says. "I love it." They sit there for a second as she wipes her face and neck off and then starts to pull her hair out from where it's tied up on top of her head. "I started young," she tells him, speaking now like she's living memories and he's not sure if she means to tell him or if she's simply speaking aloud. He listens intently anyway. "But probably not young enough. It's hard to want to be a ballerina when you're a dime a dozen little kid in an orphanage." She makes eye contact with him now and he knows she means to talk to him. "No one's there to support you or buy you little pink tutus or clap at your shows. But the orphan's home was right across the street from a dance studio and I got up and walked there every day after classes." She smiles a little and shrugs. "The teachers there let me participate out of pity, but it was there that I decided I wanted to be a ballerina."

"How old were you?" Bucky asks and Natalia thinks.

"Seven," she says.

"And you already knew what you wanted?" Bucky says. "That early?" She nods and then gestures to the dance floor where a few men were lifting women over their heads by their waists.

"You find something you love that much," she says. "Something that just fills you up inside, you stick with it. Some of the happiest memories I have from my childhood are in a dance studio."

Bucky's not sure what to say. He doesn't think he knows this feeling.

Natalia continues and her face is difficult to read now, but the corners of her mouth start to pull downwards.

"I wanted to teach dance to my children," she says in a whisper. "Even just silly things, when you put on music and take their little hands and spin them around."

"I'm sure Stevie would love to dance with you, Nat," Bucky offers, glancing down at the sleeping baby in his lap and taking a towel from the diaper bag at his feet to mop up the drool around his mouth. Natalia watches Bucky and smiles a little, but her eyes are still shining. He thinks about what she told him once, that miscarriages had ruined her marriage a while ago, and he wonders about the story behind it.

He doesn't have to wonder about everything though, because the heartbreak is spelled more and more clearly in Natalia's eyes the longer she gazes at Stevie and Bucky watches her face and wishes he could fix it for her.

Their quiet moment is ruined when Stevie wakes up and starts to cry loudly and Bucky realizes he's probably had another bout of diarrhea and he runs the baby out of the studio in a haste.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

A week later, Stevie's still really sick and Bucky's starting to worry. He's had to miss work two more times to stay home and care for him. He makes another doctor's appointment and he's starting to run out of antibiotic. He wonders if it's even helping at all.

Stevie stays in bed most of the time and Bucky has bought him a cute mobile to hang over his crib so he'll have something entertaining and calming to look at while he lays there all day.

The day finally comes for Bucky to try on his new prosthetic. He's gotten the name of the model and he's spent the past week researching it and watching videos online. Thinking about it makes him cry sometimes, but he's determined to keep it in when he tries it on. Natalia's going to come with him as moral support.

They leave Stevie with Mrs Carter and promise they'll only be gone for an hour or so. Stevie's sleeping when they leave and Bucky prays he'll keep sleeping as soundly until they return.

Natalia and Bucky sit in Stark's office anxiously and periodically give each other nervous smiles. Bucky's got butterflies in his stomach and he keeps reaching up and resting his hand on his shoulder or fiddling with his sleeve and it's still sinking in that soon enough, he'll have the rest of his limb to complete it.

Stark has the prosthetic sitting on the counter when he invites Natalia and Bucky inside and Bucky can't keep his eyes off it. It's made out of silicon and metal and the top portion is fitted to wrap around his residual limb. The hand is made out of flesh-colored segments with hinges and the wrist can twist and move up and down and the elbow can extend. It's sort of strange-looking, he'll admit. It's size won't match his right arm very well and it's only peach colored up until the elbow and the rest is unapologetically black and grey. He doesn't care. He's just excited to learn how to use it.

"Well, here it is in all it's glory," Stark says and smiles at Bucky. Bucky grins back. "Are you ready?"

"Yes, I'm more than ready!" Bucky replies excitedly. He feels almost giddy, like a kid in a candy store.

He has to remove his shirt, which gives him momentary pause because his chest is criss-crossed with scars that he's not sure he wants Natalia to see, but this is more important than his marred skin and so he sits up and strips his t-shirt off and helps Dr Stark with the sleeves and straps that go on in preparation. And then Stark takes the prosthetic off the table and fits the stump of Bucky's arm into it and when it clicks into the straps that cling to the other side of his chest, Bucky feels a lump rising in his throat.

It's not like having an arm, and he didn't entirely expect it to be, but suddenly there's an extension there on his left side that he'd gotten used to not seeing anymore and he covers his face with his right hand and bites his tongue to tell himself not to cry.

He can feel Natalia's hands on his bare shoulders and she hugs him gently. He sucks in a breath and wipes roughly at his eyes and looks down again at the replacement arm at his side.

"It looks great," Natalia says to him and he just nods in agreement, not trusting his voice to speak.

"You'll have to come in frequently to learn how to use it," Stark says. "And once you can prove to me that you can use it completely and finish the physical therapy involved, it's yours."

Bucky nods again.

Stark spends the next half an hour teaching Bucky how to bend his elbow up and down and Bucky does end up crying. The arm makes noises, whirring and beeping as it moves like a machine, and he swears he can hear the gears turning it grinding and it doesn't look like it, but he's still amazed at how human it is. How complete he must look with it on, like he's entirely whole.

Therapists had tried to tell Bucky in the past that he was whole without it, but Bucky had a hard time believing them and eventually, he stopped seeing every one of them.

When their half hour is up, they make another appointment and Bucky regretfully removes the prosthetic and hands it back. He doesn't want to leave it behind. He'd stay there all day working on it if he could, but Mrs Carter is still at home with Stevie and Dr Stark has other people to see and so he and Natalia walk out again, with Bucky still missing an arm.

His disappointment at having to take it off and leave it is dwarfed by his excitement to have had the opportunity to try it on in the first place.

All the way home, he and Natalia talk about it.

"Was it comfortable to wear?" She asks and he realizes that he's not entirely sure because he didn't pay much attention. He was too busy watching his left elbow bend to consider his own comfort, and he figured it must have felt alright or he would have noticed more.

"It was great," he says and he lets out a longing sigh. "It was absolutely amazing." He grins over at Natalia. "I just can't believe this is happening to me, it's too good to be true. I keep waiting to wake up and find it's all a dream." He laughs and Natalia smiles.

"You deserve it!" She encourages him. "I hope it lives up to all your expectations."

He can't seem to keep that goofy grin off his face and he says, "It's already exceeded them all just by being there."


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

The next day at five before Bucky can leave from work, Fury calls him into his office and all his coworkers are avoiding his eyes and Bucky feels a sinking feeling.

He's just gonna slap your wrist once or twice for missing some of this week, Bucky tries to convince himself. Give you a lecture. Or maybe it's not even bad. Maybe he's gonna give you a raise.

But Bucky can't lie to himself very well and he still feels ill.

He doesn't say it in words in his head, but he's feeling it in his heart.

Fury's going to fire you.

Inside Fury's office, Bucky sits gingerly on one of the chairs in front of his desk and tries to make himself small. Fury's pacing with his hands clasped behind his back. Bucky looks away and instead stares intently at the back of a photo frame on the desk.

"You know what I'm going to tell you, Barnes," Fury says quietly and Bucky wants to jump up and run out of the office before he can say anymore. Run out of the building and then possibly in front of a car.

He wishes he could think of something to respond to Fury with, but his mind is blank.

"Um," he says quietly and Fury looks at him, forcing Bucky to look up sheepishly and Fury lets out a breath.

"No one here wants to let you go," he admits. Cause I'm pitiable, Bucky thinks and as much as he usually hates this fact, he wishes now that it would save him. It's kept him in a job longer than it probably should. Couldn't it give him a little more time? "We wanted to give you some notice, so you don't have to be gone until next Wednesday, but after then, consider your position an open one."

Bucky hates to do it, but he's going to resort to begging.

"My son…," he tries pitifully. "My baby, what am I going to do? How will I feed him?"

"I'm sure there's someone in New York who can give you a position more suited to your skills," Fury says. Bucky can tell he's trying to be as gentle as he possibly can. He's never seen Fury dance so lightly around the words 'you're fired'.

"I gotta pay mortgage, and bills," Bucky says quietly. "Food, hospital expenses, medicine."

"Like I said, no one here _wanted_ to take you off the payroll," Fury says. Bucky feels as though a hole has been punched through his chest. He's not sure how he's still breathing. Then, he realizes something else.

He stares down at his lap.

"My prosthetic," he says out loud. "I won't be able to pay for that now."

This hasn't entirely sunk in for him. He stares at the floor. He's in shock. A second realization comes.

"And child services, they'll hear about it if I'm unemployed. They could try to take Stevie," he breathes. He looks up at Fury and now his eyes are stinging with tears. They could take Stevie. "Please, I need this job. To keep my son, please."

Fury avoids his face.

"I'm sorry, Barnes," he says.

"I don't even care about the arm, the house, the food. I'll starve if I have to, but my son… My baby," he pleads, as though Fury is the one personally taking Stevie away from him.

Fury turns around so all Bucky can see is his back.

"I'll see you at the office tomorrow and the next day, but by Wednesday, I want your desk cleared," he says.

Bucky leaves the office in a daze and he accidentally misses the bus he usually takes home and he has to take the second one fifteen minutes later.

He sits on the bus and stares ahead and in his head, his life spirals out of control.

When he reaches home, Mrs Carter seems to sense that something is the matter and she leaves quickly. Bucky picks Stevie up from his crib and takes him to the rocking chair and curls up with him there and presses his face into the cushion. Stevie squirms weakly and yells at him, but he only squeezes tighter.

"Bu-bu-buh!" Stevie yells his name, angry with being held down, and Bucky looks at him with red eyes.

"Oh, Stevie," he says and his voice cracks. "I can't lose you, buddy. I just can't."

Later, he calls Natalia.

"I lost my job," he says and it seems like Natalia takes a second to take this in, letting out a long breath into the phone.

"No," she says.

"Yeah," he replies. "I get my last check Wednesday and then I'm officially unemployed." Natalia takes a long time to respond.

"What are you going to do," she breathes.

"I'm gonna put Stevie to bed and go buy all the beer I can afford and drink myself to death," he says bitterly.

"Don't do that," Natalia says weakly.

"Thanks for the advice," Bucky replies and he doesn't mean to be so biting towards her, but his anger is building. He doesn't _know_ what he's going to do! He has no idea and it's scaring him and he thinks the real implications of this might be sinking in for Natalia, the consequences about Stevie, and Bucky hangs up.

When Natalia shows up an hour later, Bucky is, true to his word, absolutely hammered. Stevie's in his crib, surely not asleep but at least quiet, and Bucky is downing bottle after bottle of cheap alcohol on the kitchen floor, feeling sicker by the minute and rubbing his tears away with a dishcloth. When Natalia rings the doorbell, he stumbles to the door and opens it. When he sees that it's her, he presses his forehead to the front of the door and curses fouly.

"Who said you could come here," he slurs and Natalia lets herself in and tears the glass bottle out of his hand, shutting the door behind her.

"You look like hell," she replies. He's seeing everything through an alcohol-induced blur, but he thinks she sounds angry.

"I _feel_ like hell," he replies. "My _life_ is hell."

"Go lay down," Natalia orders. He watches her, following dizzily, as she walks into the kitchen and takes in the mess. "This is disgusting," she mutters under her breath. He can't seem to think up a good retort and suddenly the world turns and he ends up on the floor.

"Um," he says at the ceiling and then Natalia's grabbing his elbow and hauling him up with strength he didn't know she had.

"Where's the baby?" She asks.

"Sleep," Bucky replies. His words seem to run together. He doesn't know why. Why is Natalia here again? "He's asleep."

"And what was your plan?" Natalia asks. Her fingers are still bone-crushingly tight on his forearm and she gestures with her free hand to the mess he's made of the kitchen. "When you finished drinking yourself into a stupor?"

"I told you," Bucky says. "I thought alcohol poisoning sounded like a really good idea."

"Are you seriously joking with me right now?" She asks and Bucky shrugs.

"I dunno," he says and Natalia drags him back to his bedroom, a room he can't remember whether or not she's been in yet. It's filthy in here, too, he thinks. Suddenly, he thinks his entire house must be trashed. "I swear this place was clean ten minutes ago," he says. "Daaaaaaamn."

"Lay down," Natalia says and sits him on the mattress. "I'm going to go check on Stevie."

"Tell him I love him," Bucky says and Natalia glares.

"Yeah, this display really proves that," she says angrily and Bucky collapses on the bed and stares at the ceiling. He can hear Natalia shuffling about this house, and then Bucky feels bile rise in the back of his throat.

"Oh, no," he manages to mumble before rolling over and vomiting all over the carpet. He does this twice before shakily wiping his mouth on his sleeve and collapsing on the pillow. He hears Natalia enter the room and blanch.

"Bucky," she gasps and he groans. When she returns, she has cleaning supplies and disinfectant and she looks very angry.

"Bet I don't look so hot now," Bucky hears himself saying. "This is actually not sexy."

"I'm not going to dignify that with a response," Natalia says.

"Sorry," Bucky says.

"Please just sleep this off," Natalia replies, her voice a plea. He can hear her starting to scrub the carpet.

"I swear," Bucky says. "Two more bottles and I'll be dead in the morning. Maybe three. It'll be great."

"Stop talking about death," Natalia cries.

"Sorry," Bucky says again. Then, he lifts his head off the pillow and looks at her. She's got her hair pulled back and she's covering her nose and mouth with one hand and scrubbing fiercely at the carpet with the other hand. "Sorry," he repeats himself until she looks up. "I'm sorry."

"Tell me that again when you're sober," she says.

"Think I'll remember any of this tomorrow?" Bucky says. "I hate not remembering things."

Natalia's quiet. She's still scrubbing, acting like she's not listening. He looks at her.

"Once, I didn't remember things for seven whole years. Did I ever tell you about that?" He says and she glances up at him.

"What?" She says.

"Seven whole years and I was like," Bucky collapses back on his bed and looks at his ceiling. "What's my name? And they were like," he makes a face. "You don't have a name!"

Natalia stares at him for a long time.

"I feel like I wasn't supposed to tell you that, but I can't remember," Bucky says and then he laughs loudly. "I can't remember! That seems to happen to me a lot, Natalia."

"Shut up," Natalia replies. "Just, please, just shut up."

Bucky falls silent.

"I'm sorry," he says again and she stands up and leaves his room with a haste and the mess on the carpet is only half gone.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

Bucky wakes with a throbbing headache. He's not sure what time it is, but light is coming through the cracks in his shutters and he can smell the pungent stench of disinfectant over puke and the events of last night come back to him in fuzzy portions. He remembers Natalia and talking to her in his bedroom. He remembers her eyes, so angry. He remembers littering the kitchen counter with beer bottles and probably spilling a few.

He thinks of Stevie, still in his crib, and panic seizes him. What time is it? How long has he been there? Is he alright? Bucky bolts out of bed and feels all at once as though his brain has been hit with a sledgehammer and he slows down and groans. He feels his ears pop.

Still, Bucky hauls himself out of bed and stumbles into the hall and races into Stevie's room to find the crib empty. He stares for a minute and wipes hair out of his face and stares again.

"Stevie…," Bucky breathes. "Stevie? Stevie?!"

He bursts out of the bedroom and stops when he hears Natalia's voice from the living room calling his name and he freezes. In his head, he curses. She's still here? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? He's not sure.

He finds Natalia and Stevie in the living room, sitting on the couch. Natalia's got Stevie on her knee and she's reading him a picture book and she looks up at him when he stumbles in. Her glare is poisonous.

"Uh, good morning," he tries awkwardly and Natalia looks back down at Stevie.

"Look, little guy, your daddy finally rolled out of bed," she says in a voice too cheerful for the accusation in her words. "He missed work this morning, too." She glares back up at him. "Isn't that something."

Bucky isn't sure what to say. He finally decides on mumbling, "I feel sick."

"Yeah, me too," Natalia replies and eyes him, then turns back to Stevie and starts to continue their story. "Go get some water and a Tylenol and then you and me are gonna have a chat," she says to him without looking up and Bucky grinds his teeth together.

"Sure thing, boss," he grumbles under his breath, but he does what he's told.

He ducks into the bathroom to look in the mirror afterwards and instantly regrets it. His hair is stiff with sweat and his eyes are red and bloodshot. His skin is pasty and yellow and he looks like any second he might puke again. He runs some water over his face and brushes the taste of bile off his teeth and returns to Natalia with his hair tied in a knot at the back of his neck.

She makes him wait for her to finish reading to Stevie, then she sets him down and hands him a stuffed animal and finally looks back up at Bucky. Bucky instantly looks away.

"Did you know Stevie had an asthma attack this morning?" She says flippantly and Bucky looks up again immediately, worried.

"What?" He says. "Is he alright, did you find his medicine?"

"Yeah, I did," Natalia says. "He's fine now, but it definitely could have killed him if, say, his daddy was too hungover in bed to notice."

"Are you just here to give me a lecture, because that's not really what I'm looking for right now," Bucky replies venomously after a few seconds of hesitation and he tries not to let on to the way her words really cut into him. She was right. He'd failed Stevie.

He could have let his baby die. He wasn't a suitable parent.

He was _neglectful_.

He felt a new angle of self-hatred take root in his heart.

"You owe me a huge thank you," Natalia replies and she's so angry. He backs down immediately. "You could have killed yourself and your son all in one go."

Bucky looks down at the carpet and starts blinking hard. He swallows loudly.

"Bucky, you _can't _just check out," Natalia says, leaning in to him. "You can't just disappear for a day, it doesn't work like that. You have a son who needs you, do you understand that?"

"Of course I understand that," Bucky replies weakly and Natalia frowns.

"Then why did you do this?" She cries. "Why did you make yourself unavailable, when you have a thirteen month old across the hall? And a sick one at that!"

Bucky feels awash with shame.

"I-I," he says.

"I know you've just been sacked and that's hard, but it's absolutely no excuse," Natalia continues. "No excuse at all. What would a good father do?"

Bucky looks up at her, his features hard.

"How would I know?" He asks and she looks at him and sucks in her bottom lip.

Finally, she says, "you're better than this," and Bucky looks away again.

He knows she's right. He's starting to think of his father now and thinking about him makes Bucky want to throw up all over again. He's not his father, violent and hateful. He's not, he's not.

"They're gonna take Stevie," he says.

"What?" Natalia says and Bucky thinks it's not possible for his shoulders to sink lower, but they do.

"Child services will show up and I'll have to tell them I'm unemployed and they'll take the baby away and put him in an orphanage. Just take him away from me, just like that. They've been looking for a proper excuse for months and now they've got one," he says.

"That's not going to happen. We won't let them take him," Natalia says but he doesn't think she understands. If they find even one reason Bucky might not be a suitable parent, they'll dive in and steal him away in a second. They'd do it in a heartbeat.

"It doesn't work like that," he says. "If they think they can take him then there's nothing we can do at that point."

Natalia seems to be at a loss.

"And I'll have to rip up the contract for my arm, too," Bucky adds. "I can't pay for a prosthetic now-can't believe I ever had the guts to think I could."

"Don't do that, not just yet," Natalia tells him. "You can find another job, maybe you can still make all those payments. It's a pink slip, not a death sentence." Bucky scoffs darkly. "Everything isn't over just yet," she continues and her voice softens.

"Well, it feels pretty over to me," he says. "Maybe they can find another home, maybe they have people who'll be better for him than me," he adds, about Stevie. "Somebody who can give him the attention and the love and home he deserves."

"Bucky!" Natalia cries. "How dare you! Are you going to give up?"

"What else _can_ I do?!" Bucky cries and Natalia scoops Stevie up off the ground again and cuddles him close.

"You can keep fighting!" Natalia cries. "Look for more work!"

"There's nowhere for me to go!" Bucky replies. "I had that job because people pitied me, not because I was good at it! I can't even stand in unemployment lines because I'm disabled! There's no jobs there I could do!"

"There has to be something," Natalia replies adamantly and then she squeezes Stevie to her tighter. "Don't give up on your baby. Don't let him go to an orphanage Bucky, you're his daddy, don't let him live that life."

Bucky bites his lip hard but he can't stop tears from running down his face and he's mortified that he's breaking down right in front of her.

"I don't know what else to do," he admits finally and then he leans over his knees and covers his face with his hand and shakes. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know. "I'm so sorry," he finally says to her through his tears. "For last night. For this morning. I'm sorry." Natalia stays quiet. "I don't deserve a friend like you, I really don't."

"Thank you for apologizing," she finally says.

"Did you stay here last night?" He asks.

"Right here on this couch," she says and out of the corner of his eye he sees her shrug. "I couldn't leave the baby." He looks over a little and she grins. "I couldn't leave Stevie, either." Admittedly, this makes Bucky smile a little and he lets out a breath through his nose.

"Good one," he breathes.

"Zing," Natalia says and it takes a few seconds for both of their smiles to fade back into frowns. Then, she changes the subject. "There's something else we need to talk about," she says.

"Is there an eviction notice pasted on my door?" Bucky asks. "Is the world ending tomorrow?"

"You said something to me last night before you went to sleep and I just…," she frowns. "It concerned me and I just wanted you to know you'd said it." Bucky looks up at her.

"Oh, no," he says. "Did I insult you? I want you to know I don't actually think anything bad about you ever, Nat, I think you're perfect. I was so drunk out of my mind, I wasn't making sense-"

"It was about the army," Natalia says quietly and Bucky stops. He stares at her and a chill starts at the top of his head and runs down his whole body. He can't answer for a while.

"What did I say," he finally asks in a voice more like a whisper and Natalia looks down at Stevie, whose fallen asleep in her arms and doesn't look back up.

"You just kept talking," she says. "You wouldn't shut up and I knew you were going to say things you'd regret, so I just left you there. If you're gonna tell me these things, I want you to decide to tell them to me completely sober, not accidentally let them all slip in a drunken haze. It's not fair to you."

"What did I say?" Bucky cries. He's feeling fear make the hair on his arm stand and he doesn't know what he told her, doesn't know what she knows about him. Natalia stares down at Stevie's sleeping face and glances back up at him quietly.

"You told me you didn't have a name," she says. "That those seven years, you were some sort of amnesiac and they wouldn't let you have a name."

Bucky looks at her and doesn't know what to do. It's not everything and it's not among the worst things he could have told her, but it's a window into the blackness of his past. It's like she's looking at him now as he was then, this nameless, inhuman monster in chains. His mouth goes dry. He doesn't want her to know who he was. He doesn't want her to know how they treated him. Then maybe, anxiety in his gut whispers, she'll realize they were right and she'll leave you. She'll realize you're worthless because they made you that way.

He's not sure how long they sit there in silence, but it feels like years.

"I just wanted you to know you'd said it," she adds quietly.

Finally, Bucky moves, swallows, stands.

"Are you going to stay?" He asks quietly and she looks up at him. She must be taking in his sallow cheeks, his bloodshot eyes, the way he looks dead, because she nods a second later.

"You and Stevie still need me," she says and with this, Bucky starts to back out of the living room.

"I'm gonna go back to bed," he says. "You can put Stevie in his crib if you want."

"I hope you feel better when you wake up," she says to him quietly and he just nods and turns and hastily makes his way back to his bedroom, where he turns out all the lights and draws the shutters closed tighter and collapses on his bed with a pillow over his head.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

The next day, Bucky takes Stevie back to the pediatricians office and he doesn't think he can do it alone, so he asks Natalia to come with him. She promises she'll be there and before the appointment, they all meet in Bucky's beat up little car and he takes them down to the office.

"I just want to have you look at him again," Bucky says as he hands Stevie over to Dr Banner, the pediatrician, and Banner examines Stevie again, listening to his little heart and his little cough.

"You said the previous antibiotic didn't really help?" Banner asks and Bucky nods quietly. He's waiting for another life expectancy number-he hears a lot of them-when beside him, Natalia grabs up his hand and squeezes. He looks over at her and she offers him a comforting smile and he tries to smile back, enjoying the feeling of her fingers around his. He's so glad she's his friend.

"Alright, well," Banner says and hands Stevie back over. Bucky lets Natalia take him. "I'm going to prescribe you something stronger and I want to see you again in a week to check up."

When they stand and Banner hands Bucky the strip of paper for the new medicine, he looks him directly in the eye. "Pneumonia is easily cured," he says. "We're not going to let this kill your baby."

Bucky just nods, starting to feel choked up, and he shakes the doctor's hand and they leave.

On the way out of the office, Natalia's still holding Stevie and Bucky's envious of the way she's able to wrap him up in two arms. Stevie's resting his head in the crook of her neck and-

-he doesn't have a gun this time. they didn't give him one. but he finds a crowbar on the way in and he picks it up and swings it in his hands and when the target looks up, he drives the end of it right through her heart. she stares and chokes and spits up blood in his face and he grips the end of the crowbar jutting out of her chest and pulls.

he takes the bar and the body back to his handlers, like he's supposed to.

these handlers are different. they compliment him when they put him in chains. they praise him before they beat him. and he remembers their sick smiles when he drops the body at their feet, like he's a hunting dog with blood in his teeth.

-Bucky hears Stevie screaming. He looks up slowly through a curtain of his own hair and there's Natalia, holding Stevie to her chest and staring at him, standing a few paces away. Her eyes look horrified and her mouth is open.

He's pressed up against the wall across from her and hunched over. His hand is flat against the wall behind him, as though he's about to launch himself forward and he's looking for something to grab to hold himself there.

His chest protests and he remembers to breathe and he sucks in as deeply as he can. His breath rattles.

Natalia wets her lips and takes another step back. One of her hands rests on the top of Stevie's tiny head protectively. His eyes move from her to Stevie and back again and something inside him crumbles. He slides down the wall until he hits the ground and forces breath in and out of his mouth. He raises his hand and presses it to his face and he's shaking. He's always shaking. He hates it.

Over the sound of Stevie's screams, Natalia whispers, "what. The hell. Is happening to you."

Bucky curls himself into a ball. He doesn't trust himself to respond.

They sit there for a while, and then when Stevie starts to quiet, he hears her sit him down gently and then scoot herself over to Bucky. Bucky wants her to sit with him and maybe hold him and just because he wants it, he moves away. She follows and he can feel her presence at his shoulder. The next thing he knows, he's feeling her arms wrap around him and he leans into her.

"You're shaking like a leaf," Natalia says and he knows she must also notice how clammy his skin has become, but she doesn't comment on that. "What happened?"

When Bucky tries to respond, he lets out a sob and he clamps his mouth shut.

She squeezes him and starts muttering comforting things and Stevie crawls over on his hands and knees and braces himself on Bucky's leg to stand. Bucky looks up at him and Stevie leans over and plants a kiss on his nose.

"Look at that," Natalia says in a quiet voice. "Even Stevie wants you to be okay."

"Flashback," he manages to choke out. "That's what they, that's, they said that's, w-what it's called and-" he swallows hard. "All I see when I close my eyes, when I blink, it's just these horrible pictures I can't stop seeing." He hears Natalia stop breathing and squeeze him tighter. He collapses a little and his head drops to her shoulder. Stevie's little hands are still on his knees and he stands there in front of Bucky and sways.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Natalia asks and in all honesty, Bucky would love to talk about it. He'd love to be listened to, have someone nod when he explains himself like it all makes sense and know they're at least trying to understand how he feels. But he can't because Natalia doesn't know and if she did know, she'd be disgusted with him. She'd hate him. He couldn't bare to have her see him the way he sees himself.

So he forces himself to shake his head and he keeps hearing the grinding and squelching of the crowbar as he yanks it out of the woman's rib cage and his stomach turns over.

Natalia gets him into the car eventually, scooping up Stevie in one arm and wrapping the other around Bucky's waist to guide him. He grips her shoulder because he knows without her, he'd be on the ground again, and she puts him into the passenger's seat and takes the driver's seat.

They get halfway home before he speaks again.

"I'm like one big giant problem," he says. "That's all I am. Just someone you gotta scrape up off the floor because he can't do it himself."

Natalia doesn't answer. She stares ahead at the road. He looks over at her.

"You didn't sign up for this," he says. "If you wanna leave me, you can. Stevie and I, we'll just keep going like we have in the past. Don't feel obligated to help me."

"I don't," she says and he shuts up.

She takes them through a pharmacy and gets Stevie's medicine and brings them both back home.

"You're sure you don't want to talk about it?" Natalia asks Bucky before she leaves and he looks at the ground and shakes his head. "Bucky." Natalia says quietly and steps closer to him. "You've been scaring me lately."

He looks up at her with tired eyes and she brushes his cheek with her lips and is gone.

The next day is his last day of work. He takes his paycheck and scoops everything from his desk into a box and leaves, but as he's on his way out the door, he gets a text.

"Can you get a sitter from seven to eight?" Natalia asks.

"Why?" Bucky asks.

"I was thinking we could both use some time," she says. "Late dinner at my place?" Bucky thinks about it, then sends, "Okay."


	18. Chapter 18

_It's been three days since I last posted! I owe you guys Chapters 18-20, so I'll post those today and I'll have a note explaining some things at the end. -BlitheBells_

Chapter Eighteen

Mrs Carter agrees to stay the extra few hours over the phone and Bucky promises to pay more and on his way to the bus stop, he passes a barber shop. He stops and stares for a minute and if he had a free hand, which he doesn't, he might have pulled at the ends of his hair thoughtfully.

He's got a few solid hours before he's going to meet Nat. He ducks into the barber shop.

Once at home, Mrs Carter seems to like his haircut and he changes into something nicer to wear, meaning black dress slacks and a button up shirt with the left sleeve pinned up, and lets Stevie run his hands over his hair.

"Kinda short, huh, buddy," Bucky says and Stevie seems almost confused. "You can't pull on it anymore. Sorry, baby."

He's eager to surprise Natalia and see what she thinks. He wonders if bringing flowers would be overboard, and then dismisses the idea because he probably doesn't have the cash for it anyway.

He shows up at her door just a little late because he got caught up playing with Stevie and he offers her a smile. She's in a dress with her hair curled and when she opens the door, she double takes and stares. He reaches up and smooths his hair back.

"What do you think?" He asks and Natalia steps out into the hall in her barefeet and kisses him. He's almost caught off guard and he wraps his arm around her and kisses back and she starts to drag him into her apartment, her hands on the collar of his shirt.

"It looks great," she says and presses her lips up against his again, shutting the door behind them.

"I was nervous you might not like it," he says between breaths and she laughs a little. He's up against the wall and she's got her hands on his shoulders, holding him there while they kiss each other. He runs his hand down her back and she tangles her fingers in his newly cropped hair and then there's a seconds hesitation where she pulls back and presses her forehead to his and he says, "are we really here for dinner or was that just a clever lie?"

Natalia laughs again and takes his wrist and pulls him further into her apartment and into the kitchen, where dishes of pasta have been set up.

"I'm not just here to seduce you," she teases. "I promise."

They sit and Bucky wonders if this counts as a first date or a third or fourth date and because he feels like it would be awkward to ask, he tells himself to forget about it. Instead, he says, "this is the first time we're getting together without Stevie."

Natalia looks up at him and nods thoughtfully. "Yeah, I guess you're right," she says. "How strange."

He wants to put into words for her how he feels. They way they fit along with each other as though they'd been best friends for years, falling back on each other their whole lives, even though he thinks he's barely known her a month. Even though he still feels as though there's a whole world behind Natalia that he's yet to learn, he thinks he knows the important things. He knows he really, really loves her. He trusts her with his whole heart and somehow, all his responsibilities and the weight of everything on his shoulders seem less like hindrances that keep them apart and more like challenges to face together. He's never felt like this with anyone else before. That maybe, for once, someone's got his back.

Silenced as he considers this, Bucky takes a bite of Natalia's spaghetti and compliments it.

"You've definitely got me beat where cooking is concerned," Bucky says with a smile. "This isn't even out of a can!" Natalia actually laughs out loud.

"It's not exactly gourmet, either," she says. And there's that smile again, and that laugh like bells. He wants to remember it forever. "It's just pasta."

"I love it," he tells her and takes another bite.

There's a pause in the conversation as they both eat and then Natalia leans forward the way she does over the table with her elbows up, looking at him like he's the most interesting thing in the world.

"So, why the haircut?" She asks and he puts his fork down to run his hand over it again.

"Thought it might make job hunting easier," he admits. "I figure I'd have better odds if I didn't look homeless." He doesn't mention that he'd thought she might like it. Natalia rolls her eyes.

"I wouldn't say _homeless,_" she says. "Maybe, rugged. Or, um, distracted."

"Distracted?" Bucky asks and now it's his turn to laugh loudly. "That's quite a stretch. And all for the sake of being nice about my grooming skills."

"Well, it didn't look bad!" Natalia cries and he smiles.

"But you have to admit, the clean cut look will be a little better on interview day," he says and she nods, raising her shoulders, playfully defeated.

"Speaking of interviews," she says and she waves her fork at him. "Have you got anything set up yet?" Bucky makes a face and looks down at his plate.

"I'm working on it," he says weakly. "I, uh, don't have a lot of skills."

"What are you talking about?" Natalia asks. "I'm sure that's not right. What are you good at? What do you like to do?" Bucky glances up at her and shrugs.

"I was a good soldier," he admits. "That's all I know, is that I was a really good soldier." He laughs a little uncomfortably. "But that's not really an option."

"No, I guess not," Natalia says. "Have you got some sort of government wage? They take care of veterans, don't they?"

"Not me," Bucky says and she bites her lip, probably realizing too late that she shouldn't have mentioned the army. "It's really complicated," he continues and he looks away, feeling ashamed. "I don't qualify for their support anymore."

"We'll keep looking," Natalia tells him quietly. "We'll find something else for you to do." He just nods.

Eight comes far, far too soon and Bucky hurries home to relieve Mrs Carter.

The next morning, he makes a call into Dr Starks office and cancels the contract for his prosthetic. He doesn't want to admit how much making that call crushes him.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

Minutes after Bucky hangs up the phone with Dr Stark, Natalia arrives at the door. He lets her in, only slightly self-conscious about the fact that he hasn't combed his hair and he's still in his pajamas, but she doesn't seem to mind. Bucky makes her and Stevie a pancake breakfast and when Mrs Carter comes over, he invites her in, too, explaining that he won't need her for a while, given that he doesn't exactly have a day job anymore, but she's more than welcome to come in for a big family breakfast.

Bucky is making a very conscious effort to look cheerful, even though he feels a destructive fear burning him away inside, made worse by the fact that he's not going to work this morning and he may lose everything he loves. But he smiles anyway, forces himself to, really, and he can't wait for Mrs Carter to leave so he can stop pretending and fall into Natalia's arms and weep.

Unfortunately, by the time he thinks he can do just this and Stevie's taken his medicine and is ready to lay down again and Mrs Carter is leaving, he receives another guest.

Bucky and Natalia have just sat down on the couch and Bucky is ready to turn to her and say, I'm not okay, when the doorbell rings. Feeling a pit of dread grow in his stomach, he stands and makes his way to the door, Natalia behind him and he opens it to find a woman in a suit with a briefcase. She smiles at him.

"Mr Barnes?" She asks and Bucky feels his throat dry up.

"Uh, yeah, that's me," he says and suddenly wishes he wasn't still in pajamas.

"My name is Maria Hill," the woman says. "I'm the social worker. I left a voicemail on your phone, did you get it?"

"No," Bucky says. He's starting to panic.

"Is this a bad time?" Ms Hill asks and Bucky shakes his head awkwardly.

"Uh, it's fine," he says. "Come in. I was just cleaning up the breakfast dishes." Bucky steps out of the way for her to walk past him, holding out the door, and Ms Hill steps inside. She nods at Natalia as she passes and Natalia throws a wide-eyed look at Bucky.

Bucky shuts the door and follows her into the kitchen, where the pancake mess still sits, and he winces. That doesn't look good. "Now," Ms Hill starts, setting her briefcase down on a clean part of the countertop and turning to face Natalia and Bucky. "I don't want to take too much of your time Mr Barnes and, um," she looks at Natalia and Bucky realizes she's waiting for Natalia to introduce herself, but Natalia looks as though she hasn't understood a single word said.

"This is Natalia," Bucky jumps to help her and Natalia looks over at him desperately. "She's a good friend of mine. She doesn't speak English."

"Oh, alright," Ms Hill says and she smiles at Natalia surprisingly kindly and Natalia smiles politely back. She seems to have understood that introductions were being shared.

"Nice to meet you," she says in slow, stunted English.

"And you," Ms Hill says and then turns back to Bucky. "So, your papers say you and Steve Rogers have lived here for about a year, right?" Bucky nods.

"We moved in the day I got custody," he says.

"And how has everything gone?" Ms Hill continues. "Any issues or difficulties?"

"None," Bucky says.

"Mr Barnes, may I see the baby?" Ms Hill asks and Bucky nods again.

"Yeah, of course, he's in here," he says and leads her and Natalia into Stevie's dark nursery down the hall. When they get in, Bucky lifts Stevie out of his crib and cradles him close. "He's sick," he whispers. "And we're trying a new medicine, so he's resting."

"What's he sick with?" Ms Hill asks. She walks over and puts a hand on Stevie's warm little head and frowns. "Sort of feverish," she notes.

"Pneumonia," Bucky says. "The doctor says they won't let it kill him. He'll be fine." He's not sure if he's saying this to reassure himself or Hill. He figures it doesn't matter.

"Good to hear," Ms Hill says. Her smile is curt and professional, but kind. She seems like a good person, Bucky decides. He prays she has some mercy on him. He prays she doesn't find him an unsuitable parent.

Bucky puts Stevie back down and they all go back into the kitchen, where Bucky has nowhere to offer to let Ms Hill sit because the table is a pancake and syrup-y mess, so they stand around the counter again. Natalia hovers anxiously behind Bucky and slips her arm through his, linking them together. When Ms Hill's eyes are downcast, sifting through her briefcase, Natalia gives Bucky a supportive kiss on the cheek. He can't help but smile a little and he looks over at her and returns it.

"So the agency heard about your unemployment," Ms Hill starts, looking up from her briefcase, and Bucky's face falls. "We need to know if you have a plan. What's your monetary status?"

"I, uh, have enough saved," Bucky says. "Several months wages' worth, so we can eat and pay the bills for a while. And I'm job hunting right now.

"Hmm," Ms Hill says. She pulls a few papers out of her briefcase and hands them to Bucky. "These are information packets," she tells him. "So you know what you can do and the possible outcomes for your family."

"Oh," Bucky says weakly and he takes the papers. Ms Hill looks at him with a look of pity he knows all too well.

"You seem like a good man," she says to him. "The agency warned me in coming here, that your record wasn't exactly an average one, but it seems to me like you're trying your best to take care of this baby."

"I am," Bucky agrees desperately. "I'd do anything for him." Ms Hill smiles a little.

"I understand," she says. "I'm going to keep checking up on you until the agency and I are sure your home is stable again." She starts to pack up her things. "Be sure to check your voicemails, Mr Barnes."

"I will," Bucky says and he and Natalia follow Hill to the door, where she says her goodbyes and leaves, and Bucky lets out a breath and drops his head onto Natalia's shoulder.

"She didn't seem too bad," Natalia says and he shakes his head, but doesn't say anything. Natalia reaches over and puts her hand on the side of Bucky's face and kisses his head. "It's gonna be fine," she says to him comfortingly, walking him back into the kitchen. "It's fine."


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty

Natalia stays there for the rest of the day because she doesn't have rehearsal and Bucky is in dire need of a shoulder to cry on. He loves having her there and they talk and flirt and kiss and just spend time together for hours. He loves even the moments they lapse into quiet, because she's near him and her presence is so comforting.

They make lunch together and when Stevie wakes up, they feed him and sit on the floor and play with him, rolling a ball back and forth between the three of them, and Bucky often finds himself lost in Natalia's beautiful face, her smile, as she teases a giggling Stevie. He wishes it could be like this forever.

They leave Stevie with a few more toys and books while Bucky gets up to bring him a snack, and Natalia follows him into the kitchen because she's currently kissing his face and winding her fingers around the hair at the nape of his neck. Bucky's trying to fumble through the cupboard for a cup of applesauce, but he's almost entirely consumed by Natalia's breath in his breath and after a second, his hand drops and wraps itself around her waist. Her body against his feels perfect, like they were meant to be. He loves her. He loves her!

But he can still hear Stevie making noises in the next room, just unsupervised enough to be unsafe, and he pulls himself away from her, shaking his head and grinning. He turns back to the cupboard.

"Cut it out, we're supposed to be playing with that kid," he says and she laughs.

"I can multitask!" she cries and he scoffs, taking a small cup of applesauce and a spoon down and turning again to walk away from her.

"Sure," he teases while Natalia follows him from behind.

When they get back into the TV room, Stevie is holding onto his toes and rolling himself around the floor. Bucky is starting to lean down to scoop him up.

"Wait, turn around," Natalia says, taking his shoulder and stopping him, smiling playfully. "I want to read your tattoo." Bucky looks back at her, setting the applesauce on the arm of the couch, confused.

"What are you talking about?" He says. "I don't have any tattoos."

"Then what's that?" Natalia asks and she reaches up with her free hand and brushes the back of his neck, just under his hairline. "I thought I saw something."

Bucky begins to feel ill.

"I've never been tattooed," he says and Natalia looks at him and her smile falls as she sees the sick look on his face and he lets her walk around him slowly. He feels her fingers on the back of his neck again and she's silent and all he can hear is his own breathing and Stevie saying 'buh-buh-buh'. "What is it?" He asks quietly, but he has a feeling he at least knows where it came from. He's stunned at how quickly their playful atmosphere has fallen.

"I'll take a picture," she says and pulls out her phone and when she shows him the screen, he feels his stomach turn.

Just below his hairline, in small print, his skin reads, "property of hydra".

He takes her phone from her and deletes the picture and hands it back, and then he puts his hand on the back of his neck and turns so she can't see it anymore.

"It's from…," Natalia whispers and she doesn't have to finish her thought because they both know what she's thinking and he nods. He thinks he must be slowly losing the color in his face; he can practically feel it.

"I didn't know…," he says. "Years walking around like this and I had no idea…"

"Bucky," Natalia breathes and the way she's looking at him, he feels scrutinized. She looked at him like this after his flashback attack at the pediatricians and she looked at him like this when he first told her where he'd learned Russian. He doesn't like it, but he can't blame her. "What happened to you?"

His mouth dries up and he thinks he'll really have to tell her this time and he's so scared he could cry. He stares at her, his hand on his neck and his face white and she looks at him expectantly. She really wants to know. He really has to tell her this time.

"If you know," he finally manages to whisper. "You'll never want to see me again. You'll be disgusted with me."

"Let me be the judge of that," Natalia tells him gently. Tears spring to his eyes.

"Please don't leave me," he says before he can stop himself.

"Bucky, from what I've gathered, something absolutely horrific happened to you," Natalia says. "I just want to help."

Bucky just nods quietly and then he looks down and they wait there for a long time for him to gather up the courage to speak again. He picks up the applesauce and bends down next to Stevie, who stops and hobbles over to collapse in Bucky's lap and open his mouth expectantly. Bucky can't smile. He kisses the top of Stevie's head and opens the applesauce and Natalia sits down opposite him.

"The third battle I'd ever fought in," he whispers, taking a small spoonful of applesauce to put into Stevie's mouth. "I got caught in an explosion. It threw me backward. I hit my head and cracked my skull and the people around me, they must have thought I was dead. They must have left me. But I don't know the whole story because the next thing I knew, I was waking up in a cell with chains on me." He stops here because the further and further he gets, the harder it becomes to say the words. The more he can feel his heart speeding up, his breath starting to quicken. He can see it all, like it happened yesterday. He takes a deep breath. Stevie looks up at him, twisting his little head and putting his hands on Bucky's, where the empty spoon is. He demands more applesauce, so Bucky obliges, but his hand is starting to shake.

Natalia puts her hand on his knee and he looks up at her, searching her face.

"I'm sorry," she says and he wets his lips. He tries to force a laugh.

"That's not the horrific part," he whispers. "It's not even close."

"Do you want to stop?" She asks. "Is it too much?" She looks concerned. He takes another breath in, lets it out.

"No," he says and he looks down at the cup of applesauce and picks up another spoonful. "You ought to know, it's only fair."

"Only if you want to tell me," she says. "Only if you think you can do it."

"I can," he says, he swears, but he's still not sure he necessarily _wants_ her to know. He doesn't think he'll ever want her to know. He's never been more ashamed of anything in his entire life. He doesn't think anything could make him hate himself more.

But he continues anyway.

"I remember everything being gone," he tells her. "In my head. Who I was, who I fought for, where I came from. I felt like a blank slate and thinking about it actually physically hurt."

"Amnesia," Natalia says.

"Brain trauma," Bucky says. "The scar is still there, you know," he adds and he knows if he were to reach up, he could feel it underneath his hair, a long, thick, raised line. It weaves across the back of his head like a seam. "Sometimes I wish they would have let me die there."

Natalia says nothing. He doesn't think there's anything she could say. Stevie has stopped babbling, but he's still eating, and Bucky gets him out another spoonful before Stevie overturns the cup onto the carpet.

"I don't know how long they kept me chained up like that," he admits. "I don't remember much. I was pumped full of drugs ninety-five percent of the time and I was confused and scared and panicked. Most of it's a blur. I remember they broke my legs at first so I couldn't go anywhere. I remember they all spoke in languages I couldn't understand."

"Why did they want you?" Natalia asks and Bucky can't meet her eye.

"You know," he says. "You can make a lot of money off a guy who only knows how to be a soldier. If you torture him enough, confuse him enough. He'll kill anybody for you, do everything you ask, just cause he has no moral compass anymore. No autonomy anymore. Has no idea what he's doing." He's not sure what face Natalia's making now because he doesn't think he can look up. He doesn't want to see her. He stares at the ground. "And they have so many ways of making you compliant. So many ways of making you confused and dependent and scared all the time, to the point where you don't even know _how_ to say no anymore. I was their go-to guy, their loaded gun. I think at one point, they started selling me. Getting shady people to pay them money and then I'd go off whoever they wanted me to. That's all I was for years. Almost a decade. I wasn't a human being, I was a lethal weapon."

He's not feeling anymore. He's shut it off. He's just staring at the ground, saying words and trying to distance himself more and more from the truth behind them. His voice has become a monotone. He feels shelled out. "Seven years of that nearly killed me. If I'd known how to want things, I would have wanted to die." He tries to pick up another spoonful of applesauce for Stevie, but the spoon falls out of his hand and spills applesauce on the floor. Stevie bursts into tears and Bucky sits there, frozen, and wraps his arm around Stevie.

Natalia jumps up and brings a towel back from the kitchen to wipe up the mess. After she does, she takes over the job of spooning food into Stevie's mouth, scooting closer to him and Bucky.

She's a good listener. He still hasn't once met her eyes, but she's stayed quiet and let him talk.

In addition, he's grateful for the way he's able to cut out his own heart. He thinks if he had felt every word he'd said so far, if he hadn't distanced himself, he wouldn't have been able to make it. The consequence is that he feels a deep, resonating hollowness. He feels dead. He leans down and kisses Stevie's head gently.

"I almost got my wish, because when I fell off that train trying to complete one of their awful missions for them, they didn't want me anymore. I was dying, I was broken. They could sew up my head, but they couldn't put my arm back on and they'd rather I died there.

"That was the first time I'd begged them to take me back. I was going in and out of consciousness, all I could see was red, but I knew if they left me, I'd bleed out all alone. I was so scared. I begged them, I screamed, I wept, and they turned around and left.

"I don't remember being found. I remember sobbing and blacking out and waking up slowly in a hospital. I told you about that part, didn't I? Waking up and seeing that this was all I had?" He glances at his shoulder and back again at the ground. He doesn't wait for Natalia to respond. "I still didn't know who I was. They wouldn't tell me, you know? Wouldn't give me a name because I wasn't allowed to have that much of an identity, that kind of personhood. They had a codename for me, something really anonymous and empty, but um," Bucky bites his lip and swallows. "I don't wanna say it. I don't wanna hear it ever again.

"The people at the hospital identified me after a while, told me my name was James and I was an American man who'd supposedly died years ago. They tried to call my family, but my dad was already dead by then and I don't think he would have come anyway. They told Joseph and Sarah, Stevie's parents, and they came for me. I didn't recognize them and I wouldn't even let them touch me and I broke their hearts, but they were still so kind to me.

"I was a real mess, Nat. I was falling apart. I went through loads of therapy, and I probably still should be, but I couldn't take it anymore. My mind came back to me in chunks until I remembered everything I'd lost and honestly, I'm still trying not to fall to pieces. It was two years ago, Natalia, just two years. Sarah and Joseph died a year ago and left me Stevie and sometimes I still wake up and think someone's gonna come and tie me back up again, break my legs again, break my whole mind again. I think sometimes that I deserve it. For all the people I killed. For all the courage I didn't have to tell them no." He finally looks at her and notices that she's crying. Her face is red and her cheeks are wet and she's looking at him with the most heartbroken expression he's ever seen. Stevie has stopped crying, but he's hiccupping now, and he wraps his little fingers around Bucky's wrist. He feels Stevie press a kiss to his hand. "I'm not a person, Nat," he says. "I'm a trainwreck. I'm a car accident. I'm one bloody, broken mistake after the other." He looks down at the ground and takes a breath, breathing out into Stevie's fine, thin hair. "So now you know."

Natalia opens her mouth and sobs out loud and then clamps a hand over her face. "I don't even know what to say," she says, her voice thick with tears, the applesauce spoon empty and neglected in one hand.

In all honesty, he doesn't know either, and so he only shrugs his shoulder half-heartedly and stares into the carpet unseeingly. He feels nauseous.

He's recounted this story a hundred times to a hundred different doctors and therapists, and he's even gone into greater detail, describing the torture and the killing and the drugs and the way he lost his entire self day by day until he was nothing, and talking about it always made him feel sick, but he's never felt so bad as he does now. He figures he's never told the story to someone he really loves before and that makes a big difference.

He wants to vanish. He wants to disappear into the floor. He wants to stop existing.

He picks his arm up from around Stevie and presses his face into the crook of his elbow and squeezes his eyes shut so tightly he can see stars. He can hear Natalia sniffling across from him and then when she leans forward and touches him and he doesn't see, he tenses up and jumps, starting to tremble, staring at her defensively. In his lap, Stevie is thrown a little by him and he starts to scream.

Bucky hasn't jumped at anyone touching him in a long time. He suddenly feels panic that he might be moving backwards. Natalia takes her hands away the second she can tell she's scared him and he can't bring himself to look at her. Instead, he puts his arm back around Stevie and nuzzles his face into his hair.

"Shh," he whispers. His voice shakes. Stevie turns himself around and raises his arms and Bucky takes the cue to scoop him up. Steve latches onto his neck as tightly as he possibly can and bawls.

They all sit there for another few minutes until Stevie's calmed himself back down into hiccups again and Bucky pats his back. He stares at the ground and addresses Natalia again.

"So," he croaks once he's gathered up the strength to speak. "Now you know. What now?"

"What do you mean?" Natalia asks and he realizes he's physically bracing himself for her to leave. He's got his shoulders up and tense near his ears and he's practically holding his breath as he rubs Stevie's back. She's seemed understanding so far, sure, but he doesn't want to be surprised when she breaks his heart.

"I mean, at what point are you going to start running as far away from here as you possibly can?" Bucky says.

"I'm not going to," Natalia says and she almost sounds incredulous. He wonders if she heard him correctly. He _killed_ people. He looks up at her. "Don't start thinking I'm going to leave you, Bucky," she says. "That's ridiculous, I'm going to stay right here."

"I don't deserve you," Bucky whispers and Natalia swipes at her cheeks and takes a deep breath and shakes her head, scooting over to slowly and gently wrap her arms around him. Although he's still tense and afraid, he lets her, leaning back into her embrace and trying to relax until all three of them are a puddle on the carpet, holding each other.

"Don't be silly," she tells him and she brings her knees up, turning and holding him closer, practically snuggling both him and Stevie to her. She kisses his hair. "I'm staying here."

_[Overview for those who haven't heard: I'm leaving on an LDS mission to California very, very soon, and that means no internet and no writing time. All my blogs and writing profiles will be on 'pause', if you will, for the 18 months I'm gone and then will be reactivated with new material when I return around Oct or Nov of 2016.]_

_The day I had to finish _What the Water Gave Me, _I realized that I was really. really. really pressed for time. I have to stop writing on the 29th, but I travel to Provo on the 27th and technically, I should be done by then and that only gives me 8 days! 8 days to finish this entire novel that's only just barely reached anything like a midpoint. When I started posting this and made my plan, I guess I naively thought that hard work could overcome a severe lack of time and that I could write two full-sized novels in a little over a month and I was wrong. :/ So now I guess I have to admit that I'm sort of panicking._

_There's no way Stevie will be finished before I leave. But I've never been in a situation like this before, so what do I do? I can't take down the whole story and save it for later-that just seems silly, given that it's already up. But I can't leave it up and unfinished because that feels unprofessional and irresponsible and I wanted to be a writer who always finished what she started. I hate seeing stories on hiatus and I hate even more _putting _stories on hiatus, but I guess I'm really without options._

_What is everyone's opinion about this? Does anyone have any more ideas? As of right now, I guess my plan is that I'll post everything I have and then hiatus this story for a solid 18 months and hope I can finish it up when I return and I just feel awful about it. What do _you _think? -BlitheBells_


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty-One

She stays with them for the rest of the day and Bucky tries to be normal, tries to move on, but he can't. He's dragged himself down into something like fear, something like depression, and he stays there and watches Natalia and Stevie smile from behind dead eyes.

She tells him she loves him that day and he almost doesn't hear.

"What?" He says, turning over to her, clawing back up to the real world from the deep, dark depths of his deep, dark memories. "What… Did you say?" Natalia looks suddenly uncomfortable.

"I told you I love you," she admits. She's holding Stevie, who's gone back down for another nap, drowsy from the medication, and rocking him. He can't seem to respond for a while, although she looks anxious to hear him reply.

He wants to be able to give her the answer she deserves, and the answer he wants to give. He wants to stand up and wrap her up in two arms and sing that he loves her too. He wants to buy her things and make her cakes and set off fireworks that spell out her name like in cheesy movies. He wants to kiss her so well she'll never ever want to leave him and throw her parties and drag her back with him to a big beautiful bed in a big beautiful house and make her happy. He wants to scream and announce to the world that Natalia Romanova just said she loves him.

Instead, he stares at her blankly for another solid minute and chokes out an, "oh."

"Oh?" Natalia says. "That's all you've got to say to that?"

"I, uh," Bucky adds. "I… Uh…" He's already sort of blown his chance to say, 'I love you, too', he thinks.

The color drains from her face and she looks down at Stevie, mopping up his running nose with a tissue.

"Forget I said anything," she says. "That was stupid of me."

He wishes words and emotions worked for him.

"No, I, uh, that's not what I meant to say, uh," Bucky stammers.

"Then what did you mean to say?" Natalia asks. He's not sure who's more desperate to hear him speak a solid sentence, her or him.

"I love you, too, you know," he finally says. "That's what I meant to say. I love you, too."

"Okay," Natalia says and she offers him a small smile. "I'm glad," she adds. "That's good." A few more quiet minutes pass.

"So, I love you," Bucky says and looks at her. "And, uh, you love me?"

"Yes," Natalia says.

"So uhm," Bucky says. "Would you like to, um, date? I mean, exclusively?" Natalia looks up at him and her face falls a little and he can see her searching for words, but her hesitation in answer enough. She wets her lips anxiously and the silence settles over Bucky's heart like it wants to break him. He thinks he holds his breath through the entire pause.

Finally, she responds with a choked "no," and looks back down at Stevie.

Bucky doesn't think he can take much more emotional exhaustion today and this is really a kicker.

"Okay," he responds in an equally choked voice and he has trouble taking air in and pushing it back out all of a sudden.

Geez, what's _wrong _with me? He berates himself in his head. That's how I try to ask a girl out? Hi, I'm Bucky Barnes and for the past seven years of my life, I've killed everybody. Would you like to date me?

"I owe you an explanation," Natalia whispers after a while. She's still avoiding his eyes.

"You don't have to," Bucky replies stiffly. "It's, uh, not a big deal, um. You don't owe me anything."

"My ex-husband's name was Alexei," she begins to tell him and awkwardly, he shuts up and listens. "He was a boy I knew from school and we got married when I was twenty one and he was twenty."

"Was he a good guy?" Bucky asks quietly. He thinks what she's telling him now must be important. She always says the most important things in the most casual of tones. That's something he's noticed about her. He thinks she does it because it helps to hide the pain.

"He was alright," Natalia says. She glances over at Bucky. "Nothing special."

"Nothing special?" Bucky says. He's a bit surprised. He had expected her to say she had been in love. She sighs.

"I loved lots of things more than I loved my husband," she says. "Dancing. Golfing. Key lime pie."

"You golf?" Bucky says again and she shakes her head.

"No," she says. "But that's the point, get it? I don't even golf. But I'd rank golfing higher than Alexei."

"Oh, I see," Bucky says. "Then why did you marry him?"

"We had a two things in common," Natalia says. "We were both in love with the idea of marriage and family, instead of each other, and we were both terribly alone in the world. So we got together." Bucky looks at her, waiting for her to continue. She sighs and brushes through Stevie's fine hair with her thumb. "It was a disaster, of course. And I don't want to repeat it. I want to be absolutely certain I love you," she says.

"Do you have doubts?" Bucky asks and she almost smiles. He can see it in the twitch of her mouth.

"Don't take it the wrong way," she says. "Because it's not about you. I just want to mean the words I say. I want to make this work. And, well," she looks down and lets out a breath. "To be honest, I'm not all that certain I would know what love was when I saw it. I haven't had a lot of it, you know."

"I know," Bucky says. "I understand."

"But I've thought long and hard about it," Natalia continues. She meets his eyes when she says this and he listens carefully. "I think I like you more than the idea of you, like I had with Alexei. If we could never have a family and you and me could never be normal and 'picket fence' or even happy, I don't think I'd care because I'd have you. I like being with you. And just you. You make me feel happy. And I like kissing you and putting my arms around you. I want to keep kissing you and putting my arms around you and being with you for as long as I can."

"That sounds like love to me," Bucky says.

"That's what I thought," Natalia agrees. "You make me overwhelmingly happy." Bucky looks at her and can't help but smile a little because of the sweet bluntness of her words and the over-seriousness of her expression. And the fact that she loves him. The fact that he, as broken and crumbling as he is, is able to make her happy.

"You make me happy, too," he admits and she finally cracks a bit of a smile, too. They're so close on the couch they're practically sitting on top of each other, thighs and shoulders rubbing together, noses just inches apart as they look at each other.

"Do you think we can make this work?" Natalia asks.

"What exactly do you mean by this?" Bucky replies.

"I mean, us?" She says. "Do you think we could be together successfully for a long time?" Bucky smiles again, looking down. Her phrasing makes him laugh, the way she discusses these serious things with such a straight face. She means business. It makes him feel like loving her.

"I think we could," he says.

She nods a little thoughtfully. Then, "you're my best friend, you know."

He snuggles up against her even closer and puts his head onto her shoulder and they both lay back onto the couch.

"You're my best friend, too," he says.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-Two

Bucky takes Stevie in the stroller to the cemetery that day. He knows right where the Rogers' graves are.

A cemetery maybe isn't the best place for a baby and Bucky knows that, but he still takes him there sometimes. He thinks it's only fair to Stevie.

"Hey," Bucky says to the block of marble in front of them. He steps up beside the stroller and puts his hands into his pockets and stares. "It's just me again. With Stevie." He reaches down after a few quiet moments and unbuckles Stevie out of the stroller and sets him down in the grass. He promptly begins to yank out handfuls and pile them on the top of Bucky's shoe, but Bucky doesn't really care. It's just grass. Sarah and Joseph wouldn't mind.

"I wish I could say we're doing way better," Bucky says quietly to the gravestone. "But Stevie's alive, so that's worth celebrating, and uh, I guess I am, too. Imagine that." Beneath him, Stevie is starting to pull himself to his feet, grabbing onto Bucky's pant leg and hoisting himself up. "Stevie's sort of sick right now, but he's a trooper, you know him. He won't stay put for long. And me, uh, well," Bucky rubs at the back of his neck. "I lost my job. And, um, frankly, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I-I don't even know if they'll let me _keep_ Stevie if I can't find something soon enough. And money's tight, between food and bills and Stevie's medicine. Had to say no to the prosthetist again, but that doesn't really matter."

Bucky's starting to feel a lump in his throat. He sits down in the grass and Stevie tumbles into his lap. Bucky scoots him up and kisses his head and takes a deep breath.

"I'm not doing much better," he admits in a whisper. "I wish you guys were here. You're the only people who really understand. Or, you were. With the, uh, the flashbacks and the depression a-and-" He chokes and stops and Stevie looks up at him from where he's got two tiny fistfuls of green grass and makes a worried noise. "I'm fine," Bucky says to Stevie and tries to smile. "Look, see? Daddy's fine." He leans down and pecks Stevie's forehead and Stevie grins and crams a handful of grass into his mouth. "Oh!" Bucky cries and swipes at Stevie's hand. "What are you doing, stop that!"

Stevie seems to be the only one who can laugh at a gravesite and he does, giggling in Bucky's face while Bucky tries to dig all the grass out from in between his lips.

When Stevie's stopped putting things into his mouth, Bucky turns back to the headstone. "It's not all bad," he tells Sarah and Joseph and he hugs Stevie to his chest. "In fact, um, I have a friend again, believe it or not. Her name is Natalia and I think she might actually be an angel because she's perfect. Isn't that right, Stevie?" Bucky cooes down to Stevie and Stevie ignores him in favor of sucking on his fingers. "She comes around a lot and helps out and she loves Stevie and, um, she kissed me. She said she actually likes me? And I like her, I like her so much.

"So I guess I'm not just here with bad news," Bucky finishes. "Natalia is good news. She's the best news we've had in months."

Bucky lets Stevie play in the grass a little more and then stands up and pulls a sad bouquet of daisies out of the back of the stroller. He lets Stevie wrap his tiny fingers around the stems and tells him, "put it in front of the stone, Stevie. No, not in your mouth, no, on the ground. On the- here. Right here, okay?" Then he picks the baby up and buckles him back in and takes him back out of the cemetery and to the car.

They drive home and Bucky makes Stevie chopped up apple slices and tomato soup for lunch and puts him down for a nap.

_Hey everyone! I'm sorry, but Stevie is on an indefinite haitus. I'm not sure when I'll be able to come back to it, but I'm still working. I'm going to finish it before the end of 2017. _  
_More information on my tumblr page; post/155352659800/so-ive-got-some-terrible-news-for-anyone-who_  
_-BB_


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